


Na Jaemin’s Tips For Making Deals With The Devil And Falling In Love With Both Your Best Friends

by Fox_155



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Deal with a Devil, First Love, Jaemin and Co are the gay kids in school, Multi, Polyamory, jaemin makes a deal to save jeno's life, jeno's in a coma after an accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_155/pseuds/Fox_155
Summary: Na Jaemin made a deal with the devil to get back hisbeloved best friendbeloved, because apparently, eternity was boring, and watching a 3rd year high schooler struggle to deal with seven ridiculous tasks on top of school work and trying to figure life out was his sort of humour.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the people and this story isn't by any means an accurate representation of the people by whom it is inspired by.
> 
> Chenle, Jisung and Yukhei are 2000-liners in this, it’s set in Neo City, which is inspired mainly by Seoul, so the school system is the South Korean one. At the beginning of the story, it’s March, meaning the new term just started, all 2000ers are in their third and final year of High school.
> 
>  
> 
> [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/Fox_155)
> 
>  
> 
> Please check the tags, I don’t mean to make this a very tragic or dramatic story, but the idea itself is kind of dark, so please keep that in mind and only read, if you’re comfortable with it. I had this idea for a really long time, but never quite figured out how to write it, I really hope it’ll work out this time, as I haven’t finished writing yet. If you have any ideas, please do leave them in the comments, I’m curious to hear other people’s ideas!

“Good afternoon! I brought you the newest release of Harper’s Bazaar, because they have Kai on the cover. You better appreciate it, I fought a girl over the last issue they had.” Jaemin twirled into the room, waving the magazine “Though I must admit, I see where she and you are coming from, he really is quite the handsome young man, isn’t he? Not as handsome as, you, of course.”

Jaemin giggled to himself and put the magazine on the table, before pulling the desk from the corner of the room next to the bed. The furniture loudly scratched over the floor. Jaemin always did that, so he could be closer when he did his homework. “Injunie sends his regards, he has ballet practice, but you know that. We both envied you big time during the unannounced test today, god, Mrs Kim was out for blood, I’m telling you. We had to label a whole map of China, like, there was only the outline and then which cities and rivers we had to find. If Injunie sees my paper, he’ll never talk to me again. Meanwhile, you get to chill and no take these godforsaken exams.”

Jaemin dramatically dropped on his chair, as there was no answer. There never was. And truly, neither he, nor Renjun really wanted to switch places with their best friend. But making jokes about it was easier than reminding themselves of the harsh reality. The reality, that the doctors had said the chanced of Lee Jeno waking up were slim when he didn’t come back to consciousness two weeks after the accident, after the surgery, after everything that turned their lives upside down.

That had been five weeks and three days ago, at this very day. Jaemin had been counting. Over seven weeks since he had bid Jeno goodbye after they had left he Noraebang to head home, hearing his voice for the last time, having him smile his bright smile, that made his eyes turn into crescents for the last time.

“Third grade is only a few weeks old and already kicking our asses. So, what else happened? Oh, yes, Chenle got the main part in the musical the school is doing this summer, but that’s no surprise, I mean, I didn’t audition, or it would have obviously been me, but he’s the next best guy for the part. I don’t know if you remember, but they’re doing this modern take on Sleeping Beauty, where the prince is the one in need of rescuing?”

Jaemin unloaded his binders and books, sorting them by subject. “Surely you remember, because we argued over which option they were choosing from was the best and I still insist the one where they’re a lesbian couple would have been gold, but no, that’s too progressive for the principal. Old geezer. So, yeah, Chenle will lie on a bed and look pretty for half the story. He’s ecstatic. We still have four months until the performance. You should make sure you’re up and running by then. Renjun’ll be dancing. I’m sure you’d rather watch that, than sleep.”

Jaemin opened his calendar and looked what homework he had to get done for tomorrow. Sleep. That sounded much better than coma. Like something nice and harmless.

At first, he kept telling small things from school over the questions of his homework, like the cafeteria running out of rice, or that the girls from Jisung’s class had made a ranking of all the guys of their class and Jisung had made first place, as reported by Chenle as the other blushed bright red, unable to speak. But eventually, there was only the sound of the machine that kept track of Jeno’s heartbeat humming in the background. It actually helped Jaemin focus, he found. Because as long as it was just humming, he knew Jeno was fine.

At some point, he had to turn on the light, and at seven, the nurse came inside.

“Oh, Jaemin, you came again today?” she smiled, pushing her cart along. Jaemin quickly marked where he was in his text, before looking up.

“Of course. I have to keep Jeno up to date, don’t I?”

She smiled brightly “That’s wonderful! I’m sure he appreciates it a lot. Jeno, I brought your dinner, I hope the taste is good.”

Jaemin started closing his books, as she hooked the liquid nutrition to one of the many tubes that were on Jeno’s body. It was fine. No one could eat while sleeping. The most important thing was, that he was breathing and his heart beating.

“Alright, your hydration is looking very good, tomorrow, we’ll have a change of tubes, so nothing gets too dirty. I’ll come and change your position in an hour, together with sister Lee, so you don’t get uncomfortable. Eat well until then. Jaemin, remember visiting hours only last until seven thirty.” The nurse smiled at him, already rolling her cart back outside.

“Of course, I’ll get going.” Jaemin was already finished with packing up. Most days, it was her looking after Jeno and she was Jaemin and Renjun’s favourite. All the nurses talked to the patients as if they were hearing them and Jaemin did the same. There were many cases of people knowing what they were told once they woke back up. He wanted to make sure Jeno was kept in the loop, that he knew he wasn’t alone, they didn’t forget him.

He pushed the table and chair back where they belonged and shouldered his bag. Jeno’s face was peaceful and even, and Jaemin reached out to ruffle his hair, stroking over his temple “Come on, Jen-no-jaem. We miss you being lame.” The words were just a whisper and Jaemin had to take a deep breath. No more crying. He and Renjun had a pact and he wasn’t going to break it.

When he looked up, there was suddenly someone sitting on the end of Jeno’s bed. A blond guy, dressed in all black, with a choker on, scrolling on his phone. Jaemin wanted to ask what on earth he was doing here and who he was. But his arm was wrapped around a tall scythe, that was as black as his outfit, the blade shining dark blue, looking sharp and deadly.

Death angel!

“No!” Jaemin leaped forward and pushed the guy, who looked up from his phone the second he felt hands on himself, face completely and utterly surprised. He lost balance and fell off the bed, onto the floor, phone and scythe clattering on the floor next to him. “You can’t… you can’t, I…”

Jaemin pushed himself between the stranger and Jeno’s bed, trying to protect him.

“Oh my… that was unexpected.” The guy on the floor mumbled, reaching for where his phone had fallen, then for his scythe, and then looked up at Jaemin. He looked a lot less like what Jaemin would have expected a death angel to look like and a lot more like someone ready to hit the clubs.

Jaemin was looking for words, but they wouldn’t come out, his throat choked up. He just shook his head, staring at the guy pleadingly.

He got up and twirled the scythe, so he could lean it onto the floor comfortably. “So. You can see me and touch me. That’s… uncommon. I take it you hold a very deep bond to this young man?” the stranger’s eyes travelled behind Jaemin, to where Jeno was lying.

He nodded.

“Ah, I see how it is. I’m sorry, I meant to wait until you were gone. This is messing with my plans, but… Lee Jeno, he’s my assignment. Tell him goodbye.”

“No! No, please, please don’t, can’t you pretend you already finished your job? Just, you know, turn a blind eye? Please, I’m begging you.”

“What’s your name, young man?” The blond guy stepped closer, but Jaemin didn’t move.

“Na Jaemin.”

“Alright, Jaemin. Life and death, it’s a delicate balance. You can’t just pretend you collected a soul and leave them in the living world. He could never pass over and once his body gives out for good, he’d be trapped here. Death isn’t an end, like you humans think it is…”

“I don’t care. He can’t die yet! He just can’t! The doctors said his body was fine, that he could wake up. I can’t lose him, I’d rather die myself.” Jaemin cut in, voice cracking as he hurried to say what he wanted to.

The stranger looked conflicted now, tapping the handle of his scythe. “I can’t do that.”

“Please, whatever it is, I’ll do it. Just say it, if I can keep Jeno… I will give you my soul, I will give you whatever.”

The guy sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Well, you said the magic words. There is indeed something you can do, or rather… a way out of this. But I strongly advise you against it. Playing with the devil… it hardly ever ends well.”

The air next to him had started vibrating, moving, like it did on a hot summer day, when reality seemed a little altered. Jaemin blinked and when he opened his eyes, there was another guy, arm around the man dressed in black, leaning into his space with a smirk on his lips. It looked like he was going to kiss him, and things were becoming a bit weird. But he spoke, instead.

“Now, now, is it nice to taunt other people’s name, when they aren’t even there to defend themselves? You know my deals, they’re fair and square, so don’t try and chase away my clients, Kun.” His voice was a purr, as he spoke right into the blond’s ear, stones in his ears reflecting the light as he moved.

It was mesmerising. He was mesmerising.

Jaemin hardly even dared to breathe. The first guy, he was dark, sure, but he seemed approachable. This guy was something else. His aura screamed of power and of temptation. He turned his eyes to Jaemin, and the blood red orbs seemed to pull him in. It took all his willpower not to walk over and snuggle against the man’s side, for some reason.

“Ah, I like this one. What’s your name, pretty boy?”

“Jae-Jaemin. Na Jaemin.” Jaemin stuttered, still feeling the strong urge to get closer to this man. Who was he even? What had the death angel said? The devil?

“And you want to keep your… lover?”

“Best friend.”

“Hm… This won’t do. I don’t make contracts with liars.” He smiled sweetly, showing a set of sharp teeth.

“Please, don’t pretend like you don’t tell the boldest of them all.” The death angel snorted.

“Aw, of course I do, that’s my business, Kun-Kun! But I never lie about contracts. Now, Jaemin, I have a weakness for pretty things, so you may have another chance: you want to keep your beloved?”

Jaemin swallowed “I do.” His tongue felt heavy, as he confirmed out loud what was supposed to be a secret between him and Renjun.

“Wonderful.” The man held out his hand and a tablet computer appeared. “Then let’s talk about details. It’s always the details that get you in the end. I can make Kun over here drop your Lee Jeno off his list, at least for now. Well, I can make Kun’s boss do that, we all know the death angels are nothing, but small little servants to the big guy. But that’s beside the point. Eternity is a long, long time. And you know what happens, when you live forever?”

Jaemin shook his head.

“I get bored!” the guy yelped, like it was obvious, starling Jaemin. “Very bored. So, I won’t just march over to the big guy for free. I want… entertainment. And you’ll give it to me. You know the seven deadly sins?”

Jaemin had watched the anime, but he wasn’t sure if that was what this man was referring to.

“Lust, Glutton, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. No worries, you can sin as much as you want, I only get your soul when you sell it to me. We have a different approach. For each of these seven, I will send you a challenge, you have to solve. Complete all seven and you’ll get your friend back. Fail one, and your friend is Kun’s. Fail two or more, and I get your soul on top. Sound fun, right?”

His smirk was so wide now, it was almost splitting his face, like a horrifying mask. Seven challenges? How hard could that be?

“Alright.”

“Marvellous. One extra condition, though: you cannot tell anyone about this, about me, about Kun, anything, or you automatically lose. And no help for the tasks, it has to be all you, or, again, you lose.”

“No telling and no help, if I solve all seven, I get Jeno back.”

“Smart boy.”

Jaemin glanced over to the death angel, who was biting his lip, but staring at the other stranger rather intensely…

“I agree.”

“Perfect. Now, sign here and we’re all done.”

The man turned the tabled so Jaemin could see the contract pulled up on it. There was a line under which his name stood. On the other side, it was already signed, 10 Lucifer. Weird name. Was there ten of them?

Jaemin felt like this was the advanced version of “agree with terms of service”, as he quickly looked over the simple text of the contract, then scrawled his name under it. The second he pulled away, the tabled disappeared into thin air again. Something seemed to pull in his chest, like someone had hooked a line into his sternum, but it was gone a moment later.

“It was a pleasure making business with you. I’ll let Kun give you the specifics about the time, but our game starts…. Right now. Look forward to my beloved delegates finding you soon. And remember, I want fun!” The air started looking weird again, and with a small cracking noise, the man was gone.

Kun twirled his scythe, so the blade was back up. “You have three months, Jaemin, exactly from today on. 22nd of June is your deadline, if you haven’t finished until then, the contract will be invalid. Though… not doing anything will not get you out of this. One last word of advice… think outside the box. Good luck.”

He hurled up his weapon and seemed to cut the air, stepping into an invisible to Jaemin door and was gone, too. A piece of paper slowly sunk down to the linoleum floor where he had stood seconds earlier.

Jaemin stepped forward and picked it up. I looked like the kind of parchment he would have expected to sign a contract on that’d give away his soul, rather than the tablet this “10 Lucifer” person had used. “3 months” it said, in red ink. Below were seven empty circles. Jaemin swallowed and ran a finger over the writing.

So, this was it. He felt like he should suddenly feel regret or realise it was unbelievably dumb to sign away your soul on a whim to a scary, charismatic guy with red eyes and fangs.

But he turned and his eyes fell onto Jeno’s face, still peaceful, the machine keeping track of his heart moving quietly. No. He didn’t regret it at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, please let me know your thoughts in the comments ~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally update pretty quickly, but university is kicking my butt so hard, I hardly have time (and the mental capacity/creativity) to write, so updates will probably be pretty random.

Jaemin slid down the hallway on his slippers, past his history teacher and darted into the classroom, right in front of him. He heard a deep sigh behind himself but ignored it in favour of throwing himself into the chair behind Renjun.

“It’s simply fascinating how you perfected your timing.” Renjun raised his eyebrows, turning for a moment to acknowledge his friend.

“I know, I can teach you, if you want to.”

“No, thanks, I’d rather not be a sweaty mess in the morning already.”

“Na Jaemin, I overlooked your late entrance, but now pay attention! You, too, Huang Renjun.”

Jaemin beamed at the teacher like he couldn’t harm a fly, while Renjun turned back to the front, no doubt looking just as perfect an image of innocence.

 

“I bought chocolate milk for Jeno.” Renjun announced over trays of food.

“Are you visiting him today?” Chenle asked curiously. “If you are, do you mind if I tag along?”

“Yeah, of course we do and of course you can.” Jaemin nodded, trying to mix his rice, that was suspiciously clumpy. “We’re going right after classes.”

“That’s fine. I have piano lessons at seven, but before that, I’m free as a bat.”

“As a bird.” Renjun corrected his fellow Chinese.

“But bats are cute and cool! I’d rather be as free as a bat. Nanananananna batmaaaan.” Chenle flew his chopsticks through the air, hitting Jisung with his broccoli.

“Chenle.” Jisung whined, wiping his cheek “I hate broccoli, ew, gross!”

“You know vitamins aren’t deadly, right?” Chenle teased, picking the broccoli up from where it had fallen on the floor. “Open up, yummyyyyy.”

Jisung shrieked and jumped off his chair “That is disgusting! You don’t know when they cleaned here last, get it away!”

Jaemin watched in peace, as Chenle and Jisung started chasing after each other through the cafeteria, until a table of girls stopped them, nagging about wanting a quiet lunch break.

 

Jaemin was dead on his feet by the time school finished at four. He pulled his phone from his locker, where he left it during lessons, checking the messages. There was one from his mother, asking him about what he wanted to have during their family lunch on Saturday. He checked twitter, while Renjun laced up his boots. There was news about Red Velvet’s comeback, that he scanned in interest.

“Red Velvet’s having a comeback. Do you think we should try and see the comeback showcase?”

Renjun slammed his locker shut and locked it. “My mom is going to fry me alive. Let’s do Inkigayo, that’s Sundays.”

“Love the attitude. We can just say we’re studying in the library.”

“Little sins…” Renjun sing-sang and Jaemin felt his smile freeze. Sins. He immediately had the image of those red eyes, that aura, that was both scary and intriguing, back in his mind.

“Hi guys, I’m ready to go.” Chenle chirped, turning the corner.

They took the subway, groaning about who had more assigned homework left to do. The hospital the Lee family had chosen wasn’t the fanciest of the fancy, but it was reputable. Unfortunately, it wasn’t close to their school. Jaemin’s feet carried him the 45-minute ride and walk all by themselves at this point.

They were crowded on the table in Jeno’s room, that was big for one person, but not that big for three, telling their unconscious friend about the most recent gossip, that was that the captain of their basketball team was dating someone, who had confessed to him, now.

“I heard that we were going to paint with oil this year. I don’t have it confirmed from Mrs Ji, but that’d be so awesome.” Renjun beamed, the straw making a loud noise as Chenle hit the bottom of his chocolate milk.

“Isn’t oil paint, like, toxic?” Jaemin poked his straw through the sealing of a new bottle.

“You’re not supposed to dunk your nose into it and sniff. God, it’s like talking to amateurs.”

Jaemin emptied the small bottle in two long sips and glanced over at Jeno. He would have known. Jeno was smart. Not just book-smart, but the type of smart that had common knowledge. But never arrogant about it.

“I’ll bring this stuff to the trash, we don’t have to burden the nurses with our waste.” Jaemin got up and collected the empty chocolate milk packaging off the table.

The hallway felt refreshingly empty and cool. The air in the hospital always had that certain smell to it, but when you stayed long enough you stopped noticing.

“Hey, sorry.” A soft, gentle voice asked. Jaemin looked up from where he was staring at the waste bin, like that’d make the lid open itself. Open litter-ame… or something. The guy who had spoken was a lot taller than Jaemin would have expected from such a soft voice, which an angelic face. He wasn’t in scrubs, nor in the pyjamas the patients wore, but in a white hoodie and checked jacket. Visitor then, like himself.

“Yes?” Jaemin asked, quickly dropping his waste. It wasn’t a cute look to talk to strangers with your hands full of trash.

“My puppy ran away, did you happen to see one? Small, white, green collar?” Jaemin’s eyebrows rose.

“Puppy? In the hospital?”

“Yeah. I know. He ran off.” The guy looked very flustered “So, you haven’t seen him? Would you help me find him?”

Jaemin was about to say that he was sorry, but he didn’t have time, because he had a lot of maths homework to figure out. But suddenly, the piece of paper in his pocket, that had just appeared there after he had gotten dressed, a fat 2 months, 30 days and seven empty circles on it, felt very heavy.

“Yes, sure.” Jaemin smiled, feeling nervousness course through him. Was this some minion of the devil? He did not look the part… none of the dark, dangerous feeling the man yesterday had held.

“That’d be so… kind of you.” The stranger smiled brightly. “He listens very well, his name’s Zeus. If you find him, give me a call. It might take some time, but I believe in you” He held out a card that was emerald green, with nothing, but the number 666 on it. Jaemin took it and stared at it for a moment, then up to the guy, to ask if he was absolutely fucking serious. But the man was gone, disappeared into thin air.

If he had held any doubt about the nature of the request, it was obvious now.

Jaemin cursed under his breath, as he rushed back to room 423, pulling out his phone to google the seven deadly sins. What had the guy said? Kindness? Kindness was, very obviously, not a sin. Jaemin groaned, pushing the door open.

“Hey, guys, I realised I lost something, get started without me, I’ll drop by the second I’ve got it.”

“Do you need help?” Renjun perked up from where he was reading out the interview with Kai from Harper’s Bazaar for Jeno.

He almost said yes, but the paper felt heavy again. Maybe this was the death angel, giving him a little help? He had seemed concerned yesterday and the paper had fallen where he had disappeared.

“No, it’s alright. I’m sure I’ll find it easily.”

 

Who was Jaemin kidding? He had a timeframe of three months. Of course, he didn’t find a white dog named Zeus with a green collar within the two hours of searching he got done.

He managed to comb through all the rooms on the floors that were open to free access, the last room being the common one on the floor above floor four, where Jeno was. A girl with braided hair looked up from her book, as Jaemin let his gaze sweep through the room, searching, but not finding what he was looking for.

“Did you lose something, Oppa?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Maybe I saw it, what did you lose?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. What are you reading?”

“Percy Jackson!” she beamed, holding up the book, so he could see the title.

“Dinner will be served soon, don’t you want to return to your room? I can accompany you, if you want to.”

She pouted, holding the book up to her face. “I’m not hungry. And my mom said she was going to come before dinner and she hasn’t yet.”

Jaemin felt his heart sink. This part of the hospital, it wasn’t a fun place. It was the long-term wing, after all. He knew Jeno’s older sister hardly ever came, ever since the announcement, five weeks and four days ago, because it was too hard on her.

“There’s so much traffic outside, though, you know streets in Neo city get crazy in the evenings.”

“Do they?” the girl tapped the book cover.

“Yes. I’m sure your mom got stuck! She would surely be worried if she heard you weren’t eating!”

There was a moment of quiet and Jaemin watched her sadness crumble, at least a little. “You’re right. Can you come back to my room with me?” she asked, closing her book.

“Of course. Which room are you in?”

 

They walked down the hallway, the neon lights illuminating it with cold light. “Oppa, are you visiting someone here?”

“I am. My friend is here.”

“Ah. I hope he gets better soon.”

“Thank you, I’ll tell him that. I hope you get better soon, too.”

“I definitely will. You know, the book I’m reading, the people in there are half-gods, so they can heal easier. When I think about them really hard, I’m sure I’ll heal faster, too.”

“Yes, you absolutely will! Tell me, who’s your favourite character from it? Maybe if I tell my friend, he can heal faster, too.”

“My favourite… oh Eomma!” She squeaked, a woman turning where she was about to open a door.

“Oh, sweety, what are you doing out here? It’s dinner time, you need to eat, so you can be strong and healthy again, soon.”

“I know. This Oppa told me, that’s why I came.”

“And he’s right. Thank you, young man.” The mother smiled, dark circles under her eyes not fooling how exhausted she was.

“Oppa, my favourite character is Thalia, she’s really, really awesome, she can fight and she was a tree once. Oh, and her father is Zeus, the king of the gods! I’ll tell you more, if you come back some time.”

Jaemin stood in the hallway for a few more beats, after the door had closed.

Then, he pulled the paper from his pocket, but the circles were still all empty. He glared at it. Right. A source of entertainment. That’s what he was. Jaemin pushed it back inside and took a deep breath.

 

“Holy shit, I was sure some of the cleaning staff had accidentally vacuumed you up, never to be seen again.”

“Sorry, Injun, I got a bit distracted, there was a small lady who needed to be accompanied home.”

“Well, I got my homework done.” Renjun giggled.

“Fuck…”

…

Jaemin spent more time that he was comfortable with anyone knowing looking for the stranger’s dog. Only… it was hiding really, really well. He looked up and down the hospital on Friday, when he collected a boy in all white, on Saturday, when he found a girl from room 666 and on Sunday, when he found nothing. No child in need of finding their way back, and especially no dog.

Four days… and god knew how many more to go. Suddenly the three months felt very short, if all seven tasks were going to be this tedious.

Jaemin pulled on his hair, staring at Jeno’s face. It looked a bit paler than normal… didn’t it?

“Think outside the box… kindness…” Jaemin muttered, tapping his finger on his English flash cards. “You know, it was always you doing the kind shit in our group, how am I supposed to figure this out?” Jaemin complained, without getting an answer back. He just stared at Jeno’s face, like that might give him sudden insight to the solution. It didn’t. It only made him more and more aware of all the rises and dips he had, how his skin looked dry without getting a regular treatment as Jeno used to do.

Jaemin had spent a lot of time staring at this face, his whole life. He had never really realised when Jeno’s jaw had started to get so sharp and angular, his baby fat leaving behind the face of a young man, not long ago. After the incident, he suddenly saw Jeno differently, realising that he was both no longer the little boy he used to be, but not yet an actual adult.

A lot of things had changed after the incident. One of it was Jaemin realising, that at some point during him watching Jeno grow up, his feelings had turned from platonic to more. But he hadn’t even realised. Much less had the chance to tell Jeno yet. He would have, if he had realised earlier. Which was why Jeno had to wake up! He had to tell him.

Was it selfish to go so far, just to get this off his heart? When he had been the blind one all the time before? Maybe Jeno didn’t want to be saved. Maybe he would have been happy to go with that death angel. He had seemed very nice. Very kind…

“Jaemin, darling, I’m sorry for kicking you out, but it’s already past 7:30. You surely have school tomorrow, don’t you?”

Jaemin looked up, seeing the nurse smile at him from the door. He nodded and stood up, pushing his chair back where it belonged.

The lift doors were closing, when suddenly a huge hand pushed between them.

“Sorry!” someone hollered at much too loud volume for indoors. “Ah, almost didn’t make it. Hi.”

The guy beamed at Jaemin, like he had just won a million bucks or something. But Jaemin’s eyes were stuck to the green scarf around his neck.

“Your name doesn’t happen to be Zeus?” Jaemin asked, sounding silly to his own ears.

“Uh… no. You’re funny. My name’s Yukhei, who’re you?”

“Jaemin.” Jaemin sighed, leaning against the wall, tired.

“Boy, you look down. Wanna get some ice cream?”

Whatever, Jaemin could use some sugar right now, and Yukhei was extremely tall and handsome, so why not.

…

“Did you hear? There’s a super handsome, super tall, super cool transfer in class E.” Chenle was talking 100 miles an hour.

“Like, he’s really tall, he’s taller than me.” Jisung nodded eagerly.

Jaemin was busy looking through all recently lost pets and new ones up for adoption in every shelter Neo City had. There were a lot.

“Your gay is showing.” Renjun calmly sipped his water.

“Come on, just because you and Jaemin are all over each other all the time.” Chenle whined.

“Are you looking to adopt a dog, Jaemin?” Jisung had snatched his phone, like the little brat he was. Jaemin tried to get it back, but Jisung used his ridiculously long arms to safely get the device to Chenle, who immediately started cooing.

“That’s so adorable! So cute! Oh my god! I wish I had a puppy, but my mom just gave me a stuffed one when I asked.” Chenle started scrolling and Jaemin finally pushed past a whining Jisung and ripped his phone from Chenle’s hand.

“No, I was just looking at them.”

“Well, you can easily bring a stuffed puppy to a hospital, so… are we going to be able to witness either of you confess to the new guy on the rooftop? Because if so, I would love to be invited. For scientific purposes only, of course.” Renjun’s eyes were gleaming a little.

Jaemin was still stuck on the stuffed puppy.

…

“Ah, Jaeminnie! How nice to see you, the nurses told me I usually missed you. But I saw you bring Jeno magazines and flowers.”

“Yeah, I have to look after him, don’t I?”

Mrs Lee smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It hadn’t for seven weeks and five days. “Of course, honey. Do you want something to eat?”

“No, I’ll just do my homework.”

“Alright, I’ll have to get going, have good afternoon.”

“Thank you, you, too.”

Mrs Lee closed the door behind herself and Jaemin started on his assignments immediately. He hadn’t managed to catch anything up, after wasting days looking for a puppy, rather than studying. But today, he wasn’t going to let himself be fooled. That guy thought he was so funny, didn’t he? Well, Jaemin was sure he had him figured out now.

He half-asses his worksheets and an essay on China’s use of taxes as political instruments and jumped from his chair at 5:57 pm exactly, marching down to the cafeteria, where they sold the biggest insult to coffee Jaemin had ever had the displeasure of tasting.

At six sharply, the girl part-timing opened the window of the souvenir shop.

“God, you gave me a scare!” she held her chest, when she saw Jaemin standing in front already. “Do you need something?”

“I think so. Do you sell stuffed toys?”

“Well, yes, of course we do, those are the best sellers.” She gestured to countless teddy bears, many holding hearts or wearing t-shirts with cheesy lines to get better soon.

“Right. Do you have dogs, too?”

She sighed and turned, pulling several boxes and single plushies, dumping all of them on the counter. Jaemin quickly looked through them, picking the two white ones. One was in a box, wearing a green collar, his name on the carton in letters of the same green colour reading “Zeus”.

Jaemin wanted to slap himself in the face for not thinking of this right away!

“I want this one.”

“Sure. 20,000 won.” She swiped the other plushies back into her small hut, before holding out her hand. Jaemin hesitantly handed her his card and watched in misery, as the better part of his allowance melted away for a useless toy.

Well. Not completely useless. The circle on his paper had filled in with green, when Jaemin pulled it from his pocket.

 

“Well, Jeno, you are live witness as I figure out, if you can actually send texts to hell.”

He typed in the 666 into his phone, fully expecting the text to not get through, but after loading for a few seconds, the time stamp showed up.

“Wow, I wonder if they have 5G in hell.” Jaemin mumbled to himself, still staring at his phone.

“Actually, we do. The internet is a great place to do illegal businesses.” The soft, gentle voice from a few days back came from behind Jaemin. He twirled around and saw the guy with the white hoodie and checked jacket balancing on the headboard of Jeno’s bed.

“You mean, you can sell your soul on Ebay?”

The guy’s eyebrows rose, before he started giggling “No, at least not yet.”

“Well, I found your puppy.” Jaemin held up the box with the stuffed toy triumphantly.

The guy hopped off the bed and as he took a step forwards, his hoodie and jeans morphed into an emerald velvet suit with small dots on the jacket, that reflected the harsh hospital light. His whole appearance shifted. Jaemin felt his jaw drop a little, as the guy no longer looked like a harmless, maybe too tall for his voice boy from next door. His hair had turned from dark brown to silver, styled up and out of his face, his eyes were no longer dark, but the same emerald colour as his suit, glance piercing.

“You did, indeed.” He took the toy from Jaemin’s hand, and the box turned into a green pearl, shiny and big in his hand. “Good job. I always come to get people off to a good and easy start. Did you figure out, who I am?”

His voice was still sweet and light, but with a hard edge in it now. A flare of envy ripped through Jaemin, as he saw this man, move through the room so easily, so full of confidence, which such looks. He wanted that. He wanted to be like him so badly, it almost hurt.

“Envy.” Jaemin crossed his arms, and just as quick as the feelings had come, they left.

“Correct. Take this, as proof you’ve completed my task. I would wish you good luck for the others, but that’d be bad for business. Just remember, Jeno’s not the only one capable of kindness, and he’d have told you the same thing.”

Jaemin blinked rapidly, closing a fist around his pearl, eyes drifting over to where Jeno was lying, and when he looked back at the guy, all he was left with was this weirdly moving air.

Good and easy start… Jaemin opened his fingers to inspect the pearl. Whatever. He had figured it out. He’d figure the other tests out, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sin of Envy is associated with dogs and the colour green.  
> Kindness is the virtue that opposes the sin of Envy.  
> The outfit I’m referring to is the green velvet suits 127 wore for Regular promotions, so handsome~
> 
> Thank you for reading, please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Who do you think was the first visitor? :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt so sorry for Haechan, when I heard the news over his injury. I'm sure he worked hard on special stages for the end of the year, that he won't be able to participate in now. But heath is always more important! I hope he can rest well, maybe be with his family over the holidays, and come back with new energy.

Jaemin stared at Renjun, as the Chinese retold how exactly Jisung had managed to stumble over his own feet and fall down straight over the hallway, like a road block. “I’m still having this high noise in my ear from Chenle laughing so loudly right into it.”

Renjun’s eyes fell on Jaemin. “Nana, you look like you need something to drink, come on, let’s step by the vending machine real quick.”

It was like a code, because neither of them wanted to stress Jeno. He should just get to hear positive things.

They stepped outside and walked towards the common room of the floor, to be safely out of earshot.

“Honestly, Jaemin, I’m a bit worried. Ever since you started looking for whatever you lost last week, you seem a bit out of it. Did you consider taking a day off from visiting Jeno? You’re here every day. Not even his mom comes every day. No one will think less of you, if you take a day off.”

Renjun stroked his arm and Jaemin leaned into the touch. “I can’t leave him alone.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Nana. He knows you care so, so much. But you can’t forget about yourself over this.”

Jaemin rubbed his face and groaned. He hadn’t slept enough the last days, because he was still behind on homework and cramming. “I’m just scared I’ll…” Jaemin’s eyes darted down the hall to Jeno’s door. If he hadn’t been there last week, if he hadn’t pleaded the death angel….

“Nana. He’s in good hands here. If something were to happen, which… it won’t.” Renjun’s eyes got a bit glassy at that, but he blinked it away. “Then you won’t be any help, anyway.”

“I know.”

“See? Listen to me for once, you don’t have to make Jeno the centre of your life suddenly, that doesn’t mean you’re neglecting him. How about we meet up at my place tomorrow, for studying, instead of here?”

“Okay.”

“And we haven’t been to Noraebang in too long.”

“We haven’t.”

“And if there’s something on your mind… I’m still here.”

“Thank you.” Jaemin took a deep breath and hugged his small friend.

 

“We’re back. Nana’s going to get over his caffeine problem, because the cafeteria here is so terrible, who knew?” Renjun happily announced, before the plopped down on the table and pulled out binders and books.

…

Jaemin stared at the figure of a man that definitely didn’t belong to the school’s staff, smoking a cigarette right in the middle of the school yard. There were children, for fuck’s sake! But no one seemed to care, in fact, no one even seemed to see him, where he was lazily leaning against one of the maple trees.

It was highly suspicious, topped off with the very heavy feeling piece of paper in Jaemin’s pocket. There were only three minutes until lunch break ended and Jaemin had only meant to go to the restroom, but looked like his business partner had other plans for him.

He marched across the open field, hoping that sticking up for school rules would be the greater good compared to being late to class.

“Excuse me? Smoking isn’t allowed here.” He gave the man’s cigarette a pointed glance.

“It isn’t?” he flicked off the ash, movement sluggish, like it was an exhausting task.

“No. I suggest you turn that off. Not to mention, I doubt you’re allowed to be here.”

The guy shrugged, but dropped the cigarette, that just disappeared mid-air. Jaemin internally patted his back for his wonderful Devil-Minion-spotting-skills. “I’m not one for the mysterious entrance stuff and guessing games. I’m going to be quick, because this is tiring already.” He yawned widely and tugged his oversized hoodie tighter. “I lost my collection of SoShi photocards. There’s 81 of them. No idea where they went, could be anywhere, I did find this one already, so it’s a start for you. I really need them back, especially the Yoona ones. You’ll help me, right?”

Finding 80 photocards in Neo City, of the most popular girl group? “I’m sorry, sir, I’m pretty sure people stole them already.”

The guy smiled, pushing off the tree. Standing straight, he was even taller, Jaemin felt like Renjun must feel next to Jisung. It wasn’t that nice. “Nah, don’t worry, only people with a link to hell can see them until you touch them. Alright, gotta go, I have to take my nap in ten minutes, so tired. I entrust you with my valuables.” He pushed the sole photocard into Jaemin’s hand. “Thanks man. Jungwoo gave you our number, just text me, when you’re done.”

 

“Na Jaemin, late after lunch. Young man, you didn’t even leave the school premises, but manage to be late?” Their chemistry teacher wasn’t impressed.

“I’m sorry Mr Han.”

“Alright, just sit down.”

“Is that a Girls’ Generation photocard? Did you switch fandoms? I’m going to Inkigayo on my own, if you’re ditching, you know that, right?” Renjun raised an eyebrow.

Jaemin frowned. “I didn’t switch. I found this.”

“What idiot brings photo cards to school?” Renjun grinned, knowing fully well, that Chenle had one of Zhang Yixing, his ultimate idol, in his wallet at all times.

…

The Huang home was big, luxurious almost. Jaemin had been there many times, but it never felt like a home, not like the Lees’ house did. “So, I have two hours before ballet.” Renjun put down his backpack next to the dining table. The house was quiet, both his parents away at work.

“We could get started and look for some sources for the literature thing.” Jaemin tapped his calendar. He pushed his hand against his pocket, where he carried the paper, the pearl and the photocard. Better get more homework done quickly…

“I don’t even know what topic to choose.” Renjun groaned, sprawling over the table.

“What options are there?” Jaemin pulled the sheet their teacher had given them to look over his suggestions “Oh… the mythological concept of hell. Lovely.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting, I wanna do that. At least write about tortured souls and stuff.”

“Right…” Jaemin rubbed his face.

 

Renjun had given him a stern glaze, when he had left, telling him he should not go to the hospital. And Jaemin couldn’t go against his word, especially not with Renjun. So, instead, he grabbed a map of the city from tourist information and laid it out in his room on the floor. The man had said, he had no idea where he lost his photocards, so Jaemin guessed, he’d have to start looking somewhere. He placed the paper from the death angel in the middle, hoping for some insights.

Nothing happened, unfortunately. So he might have to check malls… restaurants… the streets. Jaemin swallowed. There was no way he could cover the whole city in even the complete three months, and he didn’t have the full time left. Neo city had over 500 square metres.

He pulled up google, looking over the sins listed on the Wikipedia page. Envy, he had already done… that guy had seemed seriously lazy, as in… sinfully lazy. Sloth, Jaemin guessed, tapping to get to the page. Maybe, there were shops or bars or whatever, named Sloth? Though, they’d probably stop him before he could even enter a bar. They wouldn’t leave his tasks where he could fulfil them, right?

Jaemin drew in all the results google gave him in the map, coming up to a total of five shops, thirteen restaurants and twenty-seven bars, that… well, he’d just leave them for last and hope for the best.

…

“Look, there he is.” Chenle’s fingers dug so hard into Jisung’s noodle arm, it had to hurt, but Jisung’s eyes were also on the mysterious guy, that was the transfer student. Jaemin squinted. He looked familiar, very much so even. Tall, bright smile, big eyes.

“I know that dude. I met him at the hospital, he treated me for ice cream.” Three heads whipped around.

“What? Oh my god that’s so not fair, Nana, you already have two boyfriends.” Chenle screeched so loudly, that the girls on the table to their left turned, looking at them with poorly disguised disgust.

“Chenle, please try and get your wording sorted. Injunie and Jen are my best friends, not my boyfriends.” Jaemin sighed, turning back to his table, from where Yukhei was laughing with some jocks.

Renjun grimaced, probably also agreeing with Jaemin, before they turned back to stare at the tall transfer student. “I wonder if he’d ask me out, too?”

“Well I doubt he knows you exist, Lele.”

“Shut up, Jisung! He only knows you exist, because you faceplanted in the hallway. I can still leave a good first impression.”

“Well, it’s memorable! And funny! He laughed!”

“Sweetie, there’s a difference between people laughing because you were funny, and laughing, because you looked like a complete idiot.”

“Well, you sure have a lot of experience with the complete idiot part, don’t you?”

Jaemin tuned the two bickering boys out, it was just another regular occurrence.

“What are you doing after school?” Renjun asked, stacking his dishes to return his tray.

“Uh… just some… strolling.” Jaemin had planned out visiting three of his hits and then go see Jeno for an hour.

“Strolling? Okay? Whatever floats your boat.”

 

“Are you sure I can’t help you?” the waitress looked like she very much wanted to stop Jaemin from crawling over the floor. But he had immediately spotted a photocard, stuck behind the coat hooks and from there on, it had been a successful hunt. So screw his pride, he was definitely looking under all the benches!

“No worries, I’m almost done, thank you.” Jaemin had four cards in his pocket and he only had to look under here…

“Maybe you can check the lost box…”

Jaemin reached under the furniture, grabbing a shiny piece of paper. Five cards, so he had six in total. “I think I’ve found everything.” Jaemin smiled at the woman, getting off the ground and dusting his uniform off.

“Right…”

 

When he entered the hospital, flopping down on the chair next to Jeno, he had a total of nine cards from the three places he had visited. “Like seriously, I like Girls’ Generation, but eighty photocards? Who has eighty-one albums? They didn’t release even nearly that many.” Jaemin sighed, staring at his bag. He’d have to do at least what he had to turn in tomorrow. He couldn’t slack off.

So, he filled out questions in silence, fighting against his eyes closing.

…

“I can’t really believe I say this, but you look like you need coffee.” Renjun raised an eyebrow. Jaemin made a non-committing grunt. It turned out, he totalled up to 79 cards, after checking all places google had shown him for “sloth”. And it also turned out, that Neo City was bigger, than what it looked on a map and from only ever frequenting the same places, and using the subway took forever. Ten days. It had taken him ten days to find all these cards and now, he was stuck, again.

Think outside the box, fuck, Jaemin’s head was spinning from trying to get his homework and cramming done, next to not cutting his time with Jeno and Renjun too short.

“I already had two on my way here.”

“Oh wow. Then maybe you should consider sleeping?” Renjun threaded his fingers through his hair and Jaemin wanted to purr under the ministration.

“I’ll sleep if you keep petting me.”

Renjun giggled and scratched the short hair on his nape. “I don’t think can afford getting more extra assignments, if your sleep schedule is already this messed up.”

Jaemin whined and grabbed Renjun’s hand, when he tried to pull away, making him sigh, but continue petting, like Jaemin was a puppy.

 

Fridays, Renjun and Jaemin tried not to do homework, but spend quality time on YouTube or with news articles they read out loud for Jeno to hear. Last week, Jaemin had been at “Sloth Fashion” on the other end of the city during most of it, and the week before, he had been searching the hospital high and low for a puppy.

“Hello? Earth to Jaemin? I said look at this stunning picture of Irene.”

Jaemin snapped out of where he had been trying to piece together where else he could and should be looking for photocards. “Oh, yes, yes, of course, there’s no bad pictures of her. She’s my ultimate girl crush.”

“I know. That’s why it’s unbelievable you were spacing out.” Renjun patted his cheek.

“Urgh, sorry. I’m all ears and eyes now, I swear.”

“Good. This is a great opportunity to de-stress, and I’m pretty sure you need that. Oh, by the way, Nana and I are going to Inkigayo next weekend, to see the comeback stage, so we probably won’t be coming, but we can watch the stage together in video after that.”

“I’m so glad it’s not that cold anymore, when we’ll have to wait in line for five fucking hours.” Jaemin wrapped his arms around himself, remembering when they had been at Music Core with Jisung and Chenle, to see EXO and first froze their butts off and then got the scolding of their lives from Mrs Park, who found out where the at that point 16-year-olds had been spending their free time.

“Oh god, yes, remember that time, I thought I was going to lose my toes!” Renjun slapped his forehead. “That’s also why my mom cannot know, that day was literally so terrible, first I freeze to near-death, then okay, I saw EXO, that was awesome, and then we get home and Mrs Park all rips us a new one, and then I come home and my mom repeats pretty much the same thing again, but in Mandarin.”

“No worries, she won’t hear a thing unless Jeno tells her.”

“Good thing Jeno’s not a snitch.”

“Okay next photo, I shall appreciate all of Irene’s beauty now.”

“You better, or I have them kick you from the fan club.”

“Like, I’m not even officially a member.”

“Can you not ruin this for me, you heathen?”

…

Jaemin was supposed to be doing extra exercises and then some homework, but he was stuck on google maps, staring at the streets of Neo City in search of something lazy, where you could lose your girl group photo cards. Thinking outside the box, thinking outside the box… Jaemin groaned. Maybe he should look at the school, where the guy had met him.

His finger hovered over Renjun’s contact on his phone, but the paper on his night stand flopped a bit, like a fish out of water, and he groaned, remembering he had rules to play by. Was it pathetic to let a piece of paper dictate his life? Um… yes.

When he had signed, he hadn’t thought doing this on his own was actually going to be any problem at all. Now, he’d literally give up Starbucks to be able to ask someone where they’d be looking for fucking lost photo cards. Two months, 14 days. Jaemin whined to himself and threw his phone away, peeling the sheets off his body to get up and have some breakfast.

 

He managed to get half of what he had to do for school done before three, complaining to his mom, who was knitting and making sure he was an obedient son. And then, he went to the library. Because he was getting desperate and had no idea where else to look.

“Seven deadly sins?” the elderly lady pushed her glasses up, giving Jaemin the look that his grandma always held, when she suspected he wasn’t going to marry a pretty girl. She wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t know that. “Well, you might want to look at the religion section, it’s on the third floor.”

So, here Jaemin was, in the religion section, shuffling through old, dusty books. Why wasn’t there a nice, simple book “don’t do this, these are the seven deadly sins, very bad, so no try at home”. It sounded like something you wanted to have, so you knew what to avoid. Or look out for, like himself. Jaemin figured this was why the lady had been so concerned.

Maybe he should just try the bible? Jaemin shrugged to himself and pulled the next one out he saw and lo and behold, a piece of cardboard fluttered to the floor. Jaemin pushed the book back inside, having lost all interest, and instead kneeled down to pick it up.

80 cards down, one to go. Just to make sure, Jaemin quickly went through the book, in case there were more hidden between the pages, which there weren’t.

Feeling accomplished, he spent a nice evening with Mr Lee at room 423, talking about politics and possible universities to apply to. They both wanted to address Jeno more than once and it was always a bit awkward. But they tried to play it down. Jeno surely would be there to go to university with them, soon.

 

On Sunday, Jaemin was reminded he was still one card short by the pearl falling off his bedside table right after waking up. But he had also not been spending as much time in the hospital this week, so he opted for still going, taking his books with him.

Renjun and Jisung dropped by and studying got ditched in favour of a few fierce rounds of UNO, that ended in Renjun being chased out the room to get them all chocolate bars.

“Honestly, I’m so hungry, I think we have to get food, right now. The chocolate will only make sure I don’t have to collapse on the spot.” Jisung rubbed his tummy.

“Of course, big baby. We can get some Tteokbokkie, but Renjun has to pay up first.”

“True.” Jisung packed his cards back into his backpack and zipped it shut. Jaemin had more than just a pack of cards to pack, as the whole table was covered in different worksheets. Jisung tried to help him pick them up, but his constant dropping-complex came through and three papers flew under the bed. Jaemin hoped the hospital lived up to its reputation and it was safe to crawl under the bed to retrieve them without getting himself covered in dust.

It was quite clean under it, scratch that, the only mess was his worksheets… and a photo card. Jaemin almost screamed in excitement, but he couldn’t give himself away. So he just grovelled back out, holding the card. Or course, it’d be here. That was just lazy placement.

He pulled the paper from his pocket, that hadn’t creased at all, and the second circle was filled in

“I bring the chocolate. Be grateful, losers.”

“Sounds like the actual loser is a bit bitter.” Jaemin grinned, feeling elated.

“I’m hungry, though, Nana said we could get food. I want food.” Jisung reminded them and Renjun eyed their already packed bags.

“You two go ahead, I just have to… give my grandma a call real quick. Yeah. Super important call.” Jaemin said, fooling probably no one.

“I’m offended, that you even try with that lame lie. Hurry up, or there’ll be no Food left wherever we go, because Jisung ate it all.”

 

Jaemin hoped, that whoever the big, tired guy was, he wasn’t going to procrastinate meeting up with him and then just randomly pop up when he was taking a shower. But as he waited for the minutes to pass by, the time stamp getting older and older on his text, he figured he shouldn’t have expected too much from the guy in charge of sloth.

The machines in the room were humming and Jaemin decided to wait another three minutes and then go, before Jisung actually finished everything the food truck in front of the hospital sold.

But he didn’t even have to wait that long. The air started bending weirdly, and the man from last time appeared, this time in a large poncho, that looked like he had just cut up a blanket in an excuse of clothing.

“Sorry, I was just taking a nap, when you texted. Those little devils woke me up. Did you find my cards?”

“I did. All 81 of them.” Jaemin beamed and held up the stack of cards, feeling confident. The guy smiled, seeming to wake up, as he started sauntering over. Jaemin witnessed the makeover-literally-from-hell again, as the blanket got replaced with a similar dark green velvet suit, with wide lapels this time, shiny black boots clicking on the floor, and his now light blue eyes not looking tired anymore at all.

He held out his hand and Jaemin scrambled to quickly give him his photo cards. “Thank you, Jaemin, you worked diligently.” The cards melted away, just like the plushie dog had two weeks ago, turning into another pearl, the same shade as the man’s eyes. “Here’s your reward. You could make a bracelet or something, you know, these don’t have the automatic return-to-the-pocket charm your angel put on his little paper.”

Jaemin felt a bit self-conscious. He had somehow expected them to and hadn’t exactly been careful with the one he had gotten from the first guy.

“You’re actually pretty fast. I’ve witnessed so many people try to fulfil these tasks and not few fail at the third or fourth, because they run out of time, if they haven’t already failed one before then. Not like you could fail with your gift from heaven.” The man winked and Jaemin suddenly wondered, if this paper was actually a much bigger blessing that he had known so far.

“Alright, I shall get going. I need to return to my nap. Have fun with the other tasks, keep up the momentum. Or not.”

“The first guy said wishing me good luck would be bad for business.”

“Hm, of course. The more we succeed, the more he has to show off and make people feel envious of, doesn’t he? I personally mainly care about my nap time. So if you’ll excuse me, your tiny friend is getting impatient out there.”

The air vibrated, but Jaemin didn’t stick around to watch. The trick got old quickly, and an annoyed Renjun wasn’t fun company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The virtue opposing sloth is diligence, the colour representing sloth is light blue.
> 
> The representative of Envy was Jungwoo. I know he never had silver hair, but I just felt like it’d fit and he was grey before. I think it’s pretty obvious who it’s this time?
> 
> I'll be gone over the holidays and am not sure if I'll be able to update yet, so I posted this today~
> 
> Thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts in the comments~


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back from the holidays, which I spent either eating, being in a food coma, or drowning in all the wonderful NCT content we were blessed with. Good times, truly. I hope you spent them well, too.
> 
> I did manage to get some writing done, too, but the Word App is the stuff of nightmares, 1/10 would not recommend, and then managed to upload it to the wrong work - I am so sorry...

Mondays were the bane of everyone’s existence. Jaemin was sure of it. Even if you loved what you did, Mondays just were harsh and brutal.

The good thing was, that he had slept like a baby, no thought of a task he’d have to solve soon on his mind, keeping him from properly relaxing.

“I cannot believe you were going to see Red Velvet without us!” Chenle screeched through the hallway, where their shoes lockers were.

“Sorry, I didn’t expect you to want to come.” Renjun deadpanned, while calmly putting on his Sailor Moon slippers. With sparkle. The type that had gotten him beaten up during first year, because they were “gay”, which he had then used to get the homophobic arseholes expelled. It wasn’t the same pair, but Renjun kept re-purchasing them. They worked like a bully-repellent, since the story had spread at lightning speed.

“What?” Jisung’s jaw dropped and he turned to Jaemin. “Of course, we want to come!”

“Sorry big baby, I honestly didn’t think of it.” Jaemin slammed his locker door shut and reached up to pinch Jisung’s soft cheek, making the taller whine.

“The audacity. Red Velvet are, like, gay icons. What other girl group has two members dating, huh? None, that’s who! Of course, we have to come!” Chenle attached himself around Jaemin’s neck, squawking right into his ear.

“Alright, we already looked up the schedule on the fan page, pre-recording starts at eight, fans will be left inside half an hour before, and you know how it is, so we’re going to the location in the middle of the night.” Renjun explained, as they made their way to their classrooms.

“What am I gonna tell my mama though?” Chenle now whined.

“Well, I told my parents I was staying at the Nas overnight and Jaemin’s parents are on their monthly romantic trip, so…” Renjun shrugged. They had reached their classroom and Jisung and Chenle had to continue down the hall further now.

“But my Mama will call Mrs Na and it’ll turn out to be a lie.”

“Sounds like a personal problem. I’m pretty sure your pretty head will think of something or just whine to your parents until they let you do whatever your spoilt arse wants to, as always.” Renjun grinned and pushed Jaemin into the classroom, hand between his shoulder blades.

 

The rest of the day was quiet, with Jaemin showing Jeno the teaser for the comeback Music Video and getting his homework done peacefully. But when he stepped out of the hospital and saw a man leaning again a bright red sports car, that was parked on the side of the road, arms crossed, looking as bored and as arrogant as could be, he knew the small break from helll’s tasks was over. The paper in his pocket pressed against his leg and Jaemin swallowed at the thought of having to approach such a person.

Jaemin loved people. He knew most of the fellow students at school, he talked to strangers easily, he didn’t even struggle making phone calls. But this person looked like he was going to snarl at anyone who dared talk to him, because he was above everyone.

He looked the stranger over carefully, noticing meticulously styled chestnut hair, red details on the sleeves of the black shirt he was wearing, and that you could probably use his dress shoes as a mirror, because the leather was so shiny. The only thing that stood out as weird, was the black gloves he was wearing on a nice spring day.

“What’s up? Looking a bit fancy for robbing a bank.” Jaemin greeted and internally cringed. That had sounded better in his head. The guy turned towards him, looking at him down his nose, like Jaemin was the ugly duckling in a teenage comedy film, and he the big, bad bully.

“I have a change of clothing in the trunk.” The guy drily said and Jaemin’s eyes flitted to the car, wondering if he was joking. He probably was, right? This was the moment to laugh, right? A nervous chuckle left his lips, as he felt himself shrink under the intense stare. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you do that, it’s not for little boys who want their boyfriend’s soul back.”

Jaemin winced. Should he be happy he didn’t have to go to jail, when they inevitably figured out who had tried to steal from a fucking bank, seeing his parents and his grandma’s disappointed faces and Renjun probably laughing at him? Or offended, because he had just been called little boy. Please. He was above average height for men.

And let’s not forget, that Jeno was NOT Jaemin’s boyfriend.

“Right, so what can I do for you instead?” Jaemin asked, smiling, what he hoped was charmingly.

“Actually… nothing.”

Jaemin felt his face freeze. That couldn’t be right…

“At least not any photocard or puppy searching. That’s all nice and stuff, but I prefer to offer the boss a bit more… entertainment.” He smirked and Jaemin’s smile slowly dropped off his face, fear taking over. “And you’ll be happy to hear, that my task has a time frame. Six days. If you manage not to break my rules for six days, you succeed.”

So, until Saturday evening then. Right before Inkigayo. At least that was safe. It was a small relief.

“What rules?”

The man hummed, leaning against his car again. If Jaemin had a car this expensive – he had seen the bull on the logo – he wouldn’t dare lean against it, in fear of damaging something.

“I’ve seen your little friends. The three from school.” Jaemin nodded. “Every day, you will have to talk someone in giving you something. It doesn’t matter what: extra rice at the cafeteria would be enough. If they don’t want to give you anything, you can steal it, instead. But get it and get it for free. And then, you share it with at least one of those little boys. Starting tomorrow.”

Jaemin nodded slowly. Talking people into giving him things didn’t seem so hard… stealing, while morally questionable, he might be able to do, just in an emergency. And sharing? That part was easy.

“That’s all?”

“Those are my rules. You might find yourself feel particularly…. Unwilling to be charitable with your friends.” The guy pushed off his car and opened the door, sliding into the driver’s seat. Jaemin watched, as the engine roared to life and he pulled into traffic smoothly.

He suddenly felt the need to have a car like that. The thought came out of nowhere, but was so strong, that Jaemin found himself on the website of Lamborgini, scouting through the models offered in the subway on his way home. He huffed to himself, when he saw the prices. What the hell was wrong with him? He was 17! He had about 1 grand in his savings account and no driver’s licence. He closed the website, but the feeling of want didn’t quite leave.

…

“Aunty, the pudding looks amazing today!” Jaemin beamed. He needed this extra pudding. He needed it!

“Thank you, sweetie. We prepared all morning.”

“Wow, it certainly paid off. Do you think I may have one extra?”

The woman looked down the queue. “Well, since you asked so nicely, you may.” She smiled and shoved another cup over. Jaemin felt endlessly relieved, overjoyed, definitely like he had gotten more than just an extra pudding.

Chenle and Jisung were already lingering on their table, playing with Jisung’s vegetables, because he was growing like a sprout purely fuelled on junk food. Life wasn’t fair.

All he had to do, was share the pudding with them now… Jisung would inhale it in two seconds flat… only… Jaemin really didn’t want to. It suddenly felt like he had to give up his left hand…

“Did you get extra pudding?” Jisung’s hawk eyes had immediately zoomed in on the dish. Just bite the bullet and give it to him.

“Yeah.” Jaemin grinned.

“Why? Oh my god, that’s so unfair!” Chenle leaned over Jisung. “First you go out with Yukhei for ice cream and now you get extra pudding? Let us have some!”

“Well, technically, I got it.”

“Don’t be so greedy!” Jisung complained and held out his hand.

Jaemin sighed and handed over the cup. He held onto it hard, but Jisung tore it from his fingers.

If this was going to be this hard… well fuck.

…

“Are you refreshing?” Renjun’s voice was soft through the line.

“Of course I am. It didn’t show up yet.” Jaemin whispered back.

“Well, it’s midnight, where is the … there it is!” Renjun squeaked. Jaemin tapped the video on his phone the same moment his friend did. There was a bit of an echo through the line, but easy to ignore. It was a tradition to watch new releases of their favourite groups together, even if it meant lying awake past midnight on their beds.

This was the first time there were only the two of them in the line. Jaemin focussed on the images and the sound, instead of the lack of Jeno.

“Fuck, I already love it.”

“Quiet.”

The video ended and Jaemin grinned to himself. “That was good. I can’t wait to see that live.”

“Yeah. We…. We have to show that to Jeno tomorrow.”

Renjun’s voice was tinny over the phone, but Jaemin knew him so well, he didn’t miss that it trembled a little. He wanted to wrap his arms around his friend and comfort him. But he couldn’t.

“Yeah. We do.”

“Maybe, we could gift him a copy for his birthday?”

Jaemin closed his eyes. No crying. They had a deal. “I’m sure he’d like that.”

…

Jaemin managed to get an extra cookie from the coffee shop in the morning, which Renjun happily munched on. Seeing his friend’s red eyes had made parting with it a little easier, but only a little. It still felt like he was giving up something of much more significance than a simple cookie.

“You’ll love this, Jeno, we swear, it’s so great!” Jaemin set up his phone with the volume high, him and Renjun sitting on the side of the bed.

“It really is. I mean, when have Red Velvet ever disappointed, but this is just another masterpiece.”

Jaemin glanced over at Renjun, as the video played on the screen. His eyes weren’t swollen anymore, and he was watching the video in deep concentration. There was the tiny crease between his eyebrows that always showed up when he was thinking too hard. These days, his mouth didn’t have the tiny unevenness anymore, where his snaggle tooth used to push against the lip from inside.

“It’s great, right?” Renjun grinned and looked up at Jaemin, whose heart suddenly skipped a beat.

“Well, you don’t have to convince me to like it.”

“You were staring at me, rather than the video though. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” Renjun poked a sharp finger into Jaemin’s sternum.

“Well, I was appreciating the music.” Jaemin pushed the finger away, before he could feel his thundering heart. What the hell was going on? Renjun? Since when… why… how….

Jaemin turned his head and looked at Jeno’s face, even and peaceful. And yes, he still was very much in love with Lee Jeno. Surely, he had just been confused. It was probably because of the guy from hell messing with his feelings. That had to be it.

“Since we’ve got this important thing done, I have to tell you the funniest thing happened today in school.” Renjun pulled his legs up on the chair and crossed them, folding himself onto the seat. “So Chenle and Jisung are both crushing on this new guy, Yukhei, hard. Though we’re pretty sure he’s straight as a gun barrel. I mean, he hangs out with the jocks, he wears those god-awful Adidas slippers in school and he constantly tells the girls how pretty they are.”

“Well he did ask me out for ice cream pretty bluntly…”

“Yeah, but probably all ‘yo, bro’.” Renjun rolled his eyes, dropping his voice to imitate the transfer student.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, it’s still hilarious to watch dumb and dumber stumble over themselves. Chenle messed up his first impression, since he was loudly arguing with the girls from his class about whether Chanyeol’s or Kai’s abs were hotter. Even Jisung was embarrassed, that’s how bad it was.”

“At least they’re even now. Both made borderline humiliating entrances into the Prince Charming’s life.”

“That’s one way to see it.”

…

It was surprisingly easy to get free stuff. You just had to be a bit daring, maybe a bit shameless. But with enough compliments, easily thrown over counters to part time college girls, it went smoothly.

The harder part was giving it up. On Friday, it got to the point that Jaemin actually had to blink away tears, as Chenle happily sipped the apple juice he had gotten. It was pathetic and embarrassing.

Hopefully, his business partner was having a good time.

Jaemin played with the pearls on his bracelet, that he had made after the suggestion. Saturdays at the hospital usually weren’t very productive, because Jeno’s family was there and he ended up talking to them more than studying.

Renjun came by at two and Jaemin remembered he still hadn’t gotten himself anything today to share. He had talked the barista into an extra bagel in the morning, then the girl at the bookstand into giving him free gum and had managed to snatch a free kimchi pancake for lunch. It was like an addiction by now, second nature to ask for something free.

But giving it up?

“How about we get some Starbucks?” Jaemin asked. The white walls and the humming of the machines was getting boring and Renjun hadn’t even brought any school work, so there was no point in wasting more time here.

“You realise we have to sleep pretty early so we get some shut-eye before standing outside the music station for hours?”

“You can have some hot choco then.”

“Damn right I will.”

They left the hospital and wandered down the street to Jaemin’s third home, the Starbucks branch. The girl behind the counter giggled, as Jaemin complimented her make-up and easily agreed to give them a free brownie.

Renjun raised an eyebrow, as they settled on a table. “Seriously, her make-up? What straight guy notices that?”

“Well, I don’t know? We got free food!” Jaemin grinned and stabbed his fork into the chocolate.

“You’re getting awfully good at that, recently.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you got so much stuff this week, and Chenle and Jisung kept eating it.”

“Haha, yeah... they did. So…” Just ask him to have some brownie… god damn, why was this so hard. Jaemin wanted to tell Renjun to have it, Renjun liked chocolate, he was going to say yes, but Jaemin also loved chocolate and this was his, he had gotten it and he wanted to eat it, all of it.

“Nana, are you alright? You seem a little out of it…”

“Yeah, do you…” the words seemed to get stuck on Jaemin’s tongue and he started coughing, feeling like he was getting choked. Choked by his own words. Renjun immediately started rubbing his back, soothing him.

“Do you need some water?”

Jaemin took a deep breath and raised his head from where he was doubled over and stared right into Renjun’s face, who was leaning close. He could see the individual eyelashes and how they reflected in his eyes and…

“Like, you don’t look so good.”

“Uh, yeah, that’d be nice.” Jaemin tried to calm himself down and accepted the water, sipping slowly. Since when did he freak out over Renjun being close? He had cuddled with him countless times and never had anything like this happened.

Jaemin’s eyes fell on the brownie. He set his glass aside and picked up the fork. If he was going to choke trying to offer some to Renjun in words, he’d offer it with gestures. Renjun was smiling and opened easily, when Jaemin let the piece of cake hover closer.

“Thanks Nana. That’s really yummy, especially since it’s free. I might get greedy for more free stuff.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.” Jaemin took a deep breath. “Would you like more?” the words suddenly left his mouth easily, Jaemin wanting to treat Renjun. It was like he could finally breathe freely again, as the uncomfortable protectiveness over his belongings dropped off him.

“Of course.” Renjun beamed and took the fork from Jaemin’s hand. A spark shot through him and they touched. So… that hadn’t been because of the task from hell then?

Well….. fuck?

“Open up! Airplane is coming.” Renjun let the cake fly circles through the air, towards Jaemin’s face. He laughed and opened, feeling the sweetness of the treat on his tongue spread.

“Urgh, this is so good!”

“Too bad you won’t be getting any more of it. I’m really sorry.” Renjun cackled and started eating the cake happily.

When Renjun returned their trays, Jaemin quickly pulled the still un-creased paper from his pocket and to his endless relief, the third circle had filled in in yellow.

 

Apparently, it also wasn’t necessary to send this guy a text, because when they left Starbucks, right in front of them, on the side of the street, stood a yellow sports car, a familiar figure leaning against it, looking just as arrogant and intimidating as six days ago.

Jaemin glance to his left, where Renjun was definitely also staring at the guy. He was kind of flashy.

“Wow, Nana check that guy out. He looks like some rich, douchebag son… or mafia. Yeah, probably a mobster.”

Jaemin chuckled nervously. He wasn’t allowed to tell Renjun anything, how was he supposed to explain this then?

The guy had noticed them and smirked at Jaemin, looking like a predator ready to strike.

“Hi Jaemin.”

“Nana, you know this guy? Did you join a gang and didn’t tell me?” Renjun hissed, fingers suddenly digging into his arm.

“No, I didn’t.” Jaemin nervously laughed. He had only made a deal with the devil, no biggie.

“I’m the son of a friend of his dad’s.” the guy lied and Jaemin took a deep breath of relief. “You need a ride?”

Jaemin eyed the car. “Well, sure, but there’s two of us…”

The guy laughed and opened the door. “Well, I’m sure you can fit in the passenger seat, your friend looks pretty tiny.”

“Nana, I’m scared.” Renjun whispered, eyes still wide and on the man from hell.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’ll be the one to get in trouble for breaking traffic rules.”

“That’s not why I’m scared.”

Jaemin laughed and pulled Renjun along, sliding into the passenger seat, the door slamming shut after them. It was a tight fit and his friend was half in his lap. The man slipped into the driver’s seat and the engine roared, before he swiftly pulled out and kicked the gas pedal down.

Jaemin squeaked a little, as his stomach dropped and Renjun pressed against his chest from the momentum. Like a miracle, or perhaps black magic, they weren’t stopped by any police patrols and arrived at the high rise in which Jaemin’s family lived in one piece, despite the unsafe sitting situation and the questionable speed.

“That sure was nicer than the subway.” Renjun mumbled.

“Told you.” The stranger smirked.

“Thanks for the lift, Hyung.” Renjun bowed his head a little, before trying to scramble off Jaemin, who got pushed against in all the wrong places, groaning. He managed to get off Jaemin and onto the side walk.

Jaemin was tapped on the shoulder and turned his head. The man suddenly was dressed in an emerald green velvet suit, studs on the lapels, his eyes bright yellow, piercing into his. He had been intimidating before, but now, Jaemin just wanted to flee the car.

“Sorry for almost making you choke, but I kinda didn’t feel like letting you win. You manged to dodge it, so here’s your reward. I wish you good nerves for the next task.” He pressed a pearl into Jaemin’s hand, who quickly closed his fingers around it.

“Well, I lived. Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime. A little flex had never hurt anybody.” He winked and Jaemin tumbled out of the car next to Renjun.

“Like, you’re sure you didn’t join a gang? And he just instructed you where to go and take money off people in their territory?”

“No, definitely didn’t join a gang, Injunie.” Jaemin chuckled and opened his bracelet, to add the pearl to the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The virtue opposing greed is charity, the colour representing it is yellow.
> 
> Johnny was the representative of sloth. I always have to think of Johnny’s tweet, before the flew to the US for Regular promotions and the caption said something along the lines of just a small nap, and I’ll be in LA and in LA a Seasony asked him how his nap was and he laughed, that was so funny.
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Who do you think was here for greed?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NCT China is happening, I repeat, this is not a drill, NCT China is happening!!
> 
> Now that that's out of the way, let's continued with our scheduled programm. :D

Neo City in the middle of April at 2 am in the morning was still chilly and uncomfortable. It wasn’t as bad as December, but Jaemin pulled his jacket tighter around himself and tried to snuggle closer to Jisung.

There were a lot of girls, because Red Velvet had a large percentage of them in their fandom, for a girl group.

“Like, we can make the poster neon green, that’s still, you know ‘manly’” Chenle made quotations in the air. He was in a scarf up to his nose, his voice muffled, but Chenle’s muffled voice was still pretty loud. “But we’re still easily noticeable from the field, because of the neon.”

“But don’t you think it’s a bit… embarrassing?” Jisung clutched his light stick closer, like that’d save him from his best friend’s questionable plans.

“Well, no and we have to be noticeable somehow, don’t we?”

“We could just go and watch, though.”

“But that’s so boring. I’m gonna do it alone if you’re too chicken. Just don’t whine when I have the ultimate advantage with Yukhei after.”

“Come on, that’s so unfair.”

Jaemin failed to get more body warmth from Jisung, so he shuffled past the two playing cupid for themselves and to Renjun, who was busy reading over the fan chant. The pin button the fan page had passed out was on his jacket, reflecting the light of the streetlamp whenever he moved.

“I’m cold.”

“I told you to wear a thicker jacket, Nana.”

“I should have listened to you.” Jaemin sat behind his friend, one leg on each side, so he could back-hug him. Renjun held still, as Jaemin nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

He felt small in his arms, Renjun always did, and Jaemin felt himself get drowsy, as his front got warmer. Jisung and Chenle had moved on to arguing over which contestant of Drag race of this season had the better sense of style, like they weren’t already coming off as extremely gay before. It wasn’t like it mattered, not here at least. Half of the kids around them probably were LGBTQ+, too, closeted or not. It was a safe space and Jaemin allowed himself to nod off.

…

“And Joy was in shiny leather leggings, like, I almost died and I would have thanked her.” Renjun waved his hands in an untypical attack of fanboy feelings.

“Those are all good and well, but did you see Irene? In that sparkly sweater? That was the real deal.” Jaemin unconsciously smiled to himself.

“Can we talk about the song, if you’re done?” Chenle pouted, like he hadn’t started this conversation.

“Come on, everyone already knows the song by heart, the choreography is, where it’s at.” Jisung disagreed. Jaemin glanced at the bed, where Jeno was lying, peacefully, unbothered by the loud arguing. Renjun had Chenle in head lock, a dolphin scream echoing through the room and Jaemin was waiting for a nurse to come and tell them this was a hospital and the patients needed quiet.

It didn’t happen, and they quieted down eventually, after agreeing they’d still have to show Jeno the video of the performance. Instead, two unknown voices started filtering through the door, words muffled, but the aggression in them clear.

“Guys, I’m just going to make sure no one starts a fist fight in front of the door.” Jaemin announced, as the second chorus started on screen. He couldn’t even see it, with Jisung’s head blocking the view.

In front of Jeno’s door stood two boys, probably their own age, one with bleach blonde hair, that looked dryer than the desert Gobi, the other one with red hair.

“Oh yeah? ‘Uh Hyuck, but I still have to play this game, can’t we just go tomorrow?’ And now there we have it, you know I fucking hate waiting.”

“I do not sound like that. And I’m sure they won’t be sitting inside there all day, so calm down will you? Jaehyun-Hyung literally only finished yesterday.”

“Oh yes and are you going to explain to the boss why we missed the 24 hour time frame, huh? Are you, Mork? Oh wait, no, you’ll be on your goddamn laptop, pretending to work, but really working on your own high scores, leaving me with all the bullshit to deal on my own, it’s always the same!”

“As if you’re any better. I told you to just try early in the morning, but guess who wouldn’t leave their bed if hell was freezing over.”

“You didn’t even try waking me.”

“Because I like to live, okay?”

“Please, you’re not alive and we all know it.”

“It’s a saying, Hyuck, will you let me live?”

“Well, not-live… oh. Hi!”

The red head had noticed Jaemin, who was staring at the bickering boys in fascination. His bared teeth with which he had just been snarling at his friend/partner/co-worker/whatever turned into a bright smile. The blond guy also turned to look at Jaemin, blinking big eyes. So, those two were definitely here for Jaemin, but they looked anything but threatening. The blond was in basketball shorts and the other one had chocolate stains on his hoodie, not to mention they reminded Jaemin strongly of Chenle and Jisung only, possibly, worse.

“Are you Jaemin?” the blond – was his name Mork? That sounded fake – asked.

“Yes.”

“Brilliant! At least we’re getting our job done in a timely manner, no thanks to you.” The red-head glared at his partner, who glared right back at the offense.

“We could have already done it in the morning, but no, you had to get a good night’s sleep.”

“If you don’t even try to wake me up, you can just shut up about complaining, it’s like I’m complaining about Johnny-Hyung singing loudly in the shower and never asking him to please at least sing Michael Jackson.”

“Like that made it any better. He adds his own lyrics! It’s so cringey.”

“But at least I did something about it.”

“Yeah, you made it worse, wow, a round of applause.” The blond slow clapped and had the other in his face a second later. Jaemin wanted to get popcorn and a video recorder. This was hilarious! They wrestled around the hallway floor, until the red-head was pinned down effectively, spitting and hissing, but the blond didn’t let go.

“So, uh, Jaemin?”

“Hm, yes, may I help you?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about Donghyuck, he’s just being his normal idiot self.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“So, anyway, we have to give you a new task.”

Jaemin nodded, he knew the drill by now. It was a bit hard to imagine these two coming from hell, but apparently, they did.

“Well, we would have thought of something cool, but someone was busy playing video games.”

“Can you shut the fuck up, you were sleeping. Not doing anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, as if.”

“Our task is cool to begin with.”

“Yeah, because I thought of it.”

“You? Come on, stop it, I was the one coming up with everything.”

“You did the details, because you spend so much time in your silly games, while I work.”

“Coming up with the obstacle course was work, too.”

Jaemin concluded, that his task had something to do with gaming. Which was… well, not too bad. He did game sometimes. He hadn’t for quite some time, because of the incident and starting last year, with the gruesome college entrance exam looming over them there just wasn’t any time.

The two continued their petty argument, until the blond had his hand over Donghyuck’s mouth, muffling him effectively.

“We have an obstacle course for you. It’s pretty straight forwards. Or gay forwards, if you prefer that.” Donghyuck kicked, as the blond laughed at his own, lame joke. Was it going to give him bonus points if he laughed? Jaemin snorted what could be considered a laugh through his nose.

“You will automatically come there when you dream. And then, you’ll just scout through it and find the holy grail. It’s, like, we designed it to look like the Mario Card trophy? Can’t miss it.”

Jaemin doubted the hardest task about this was going to fall asleep, march, and snatch some trophy, and he was proved right, as Donghyuck freed himself and continued talking, where the blond had left off.

“Okay, it’s not that easy. And we have a rule. So we made it like a fantasy fighting game, so you’ll get to choose weapons. Since it’s in the dream realm, you can just think of it – bam shows up. You don’t even have to pay, since we’re so generous. There’s, like, trolls, zombies, stuff that wants to kills you. If you get killed, you have to restart where you started off. If you stop dreaming, like waking up or something, it’s like your game gets saved and you continue from where you were the next time you dream.”

Jaemin nodded, that didn’t sound too bad.

“I don’t wanna discourage you, but most people end up running out of time over our task. So, don’t be too sad if you do. Your contract just gets annulated, you won’t be stuck with the boss until the end of times. There’s one way to fail our task, though, and your cheat paper from the reaper won’t save you.” The blond grinned mischievously, letting Donghyuck take over again.

“No cursing and no screaming, no matter how angry you get.”

Jaemin knew how games worked. You inevitably got angry, furious even.

“It’s all about the patience.” The blond nodded, still grinning, because he knew exactly how impossible this task seemed.

“Alright.” It wasn’t like Jaemin had a choice. And he felt like the two might burst into another fight the second he spoke a wrong word. Their peacefulness was… suspicious already. “When do I start?”

“Next time you fall asleep, obviously. Looking forward to it!” Donghyuck beamed and clung onto the blond’s arm, before the air vibrated and they disappeared. Jaemin took a deep breath and let it out carefully, not able to hold back the sigh.

“I was just about to check, if you have managed to get yourself beaten up.” Renjun joked, when he re-entered the room.

“Nah. All good. Thanks for worrying.”

“I wasn’t worried. I would have filmed.”

Jaemin whined and flopped down on top of his smaller friend, who made dying whale noises immediately.

…

Jaemin decided to go to bed early. More sleep meant more dreaming, right? The words that most people failed these two’s challenge echoed in his head. Nah. He was moving quickly. It was only the 16th, his paper assured him, he had another two months and six days left. How hard could finding one big ass trophy be?

Entering the realm for the first time was a strange sensation, because he had never experienced anything of the likes before. It felt like he had woken up, only he couldn’t feel or smell anything. He could hear the stream to his left, as well as the sounds of battle far off. He looked around, plain grounds stretched on in front of him what looked like forever. Behind the stream, a dark forest started, that soon turned into mountains.

There was definitely fighting going on, on the horizons of the desert like land in front of him, clouds of dust and the sound of swords clashing making Jaemin decide not to start off that direction. He could die, not really die, but go game over, after all.

“Hello!” a chirpy voice greeted, and Jaemin stumbled around to come face to face with Donghyuck. He almost screamed in fear, but managed to clamp his mouth shut, the rules engrained in his head. Because the red-head was riding a bear, a life sized, golden bear, which… were there golden bears?

“I see you found the place. I’m just here to get you started. Mark said the explanation hadn’t been good enough. I mean, it was him giving it, so I don’t care, if he agrees he’s a dumbass I…” the bear shook itself violently and Donghyuck lost his balance, falling right off.

Jaemin was about to step forward and help him up, but the bear shifted, turning into a blond boy, that was very familiar. Only where the two had been wearing basketball shorts and hoodies before, they were in the familiar emerald green suit now, though their jackets were of a more comfortable cut that the ones Jaemin had seen the other three guys sport so far. More like a college jacket, rather than a suit one. Both had studs around the arm cut-outs, and a small collar, on which Mark sported more studs, while Donghuyck’s sparkled.

It was an odd mix of casual and fancy, that worked quite well. To top it off, they had both matching red eyes, leaving Jaemin without doubt, that they were a double-deal.

“I was merely trying to make life easier for our contract-holder, yet here you are again, sprouting non-sense, I really can’t believe it! I’ll tell the Boss that it was you who broke his ‘Lucifer of the month’ certificate. See how you get out of that.”

“That was an accident!” Donghyuck screeched, colour leaving his face “You can’t do that to me! He’ll take me off field duty and make me do shit like update the data base and write new contracts! The data base is a mess, that is actual torture!”

“Well, maybe that’s what you should have expected, when you signed a deal with the devil.”

“On second thought, doing paper work does sound a lot better than having to do field work with such an idiot, like you!”

“Uh, guys, sorry, but… could I get started?” Jaemin gently interrupted the bickering, because they’d likely not stop by themselves.

Two heads turned and eyed Jaemin with judging glances. Jaemin looked down himself and noticed he was in his pyjamas – a Line friends t-shirt that Jeno had gifted him for his last birthday, and old training pants.

At least he hadn’t worn the satin pyjamas that Renjun had given him as a joke, which were actually super comfortable, but no one but his mom could know that, unless he wanted to be made fun of until the end of times.

“Right. So, those are cute, but not very practical. Think of something you’d wear to battle.”

“Am I battling?”

“Well, not yet, but probably soon.”

“Maybe start off with something comfortable you can walk in well, and then add armour only when you need it. Like I said earlier, in my explanation, that was good, but maybe a bit short.” Mark threw Donghyuck a glare, who rolled his eyes and blew a strand of red hair from his face “You can just think of something and it will appear.”

Jaemin figured hiking shoes would be better than his fuzzy socks, and then he added denim, a workout t-shirt and a jacket with multiple pockets, while Donghyuck and Mark got into an argument over appropriate weapon choices.

 

Starting with the woods seemed like a good idea for about three minutes. That’s how long it took Jaemin to hop over the wooden planks to cross the stream and march past the tree line, only to get discovered by what looked like a mixture of a feline and a boar, that made very quick work of Jaemin, who found himself back where he had started.

Kill me once, shame on you, kill me twice, shame on me. With that mindset, Jaemin made a gun appear in his hand, before crossing the stream again.

Turned out, Jaemin wasn’t a very good shooter. Turned also out, that Jaemin was terrible with a sword, terrible with a knife and lucky, that he wasn’t able to feel anything in this realm.

…

The best part about this task was, that it didn’t eat away from Jaemin’s day-time. And he was motivated to waste less time on his phone in the evenings and go to sleep earlier.

Only, it seemed like time might actually become a problem. It had been five days, and Jaemin had only managed to survive for a total of 15 minutes as his high score. The things that Mark and Donghyuck had come up with to kill him were intense.

“Earth to Nana?” Renjun waved his hand in front of Jaemin’s eyes.

“Yeah? Sorry.”

“I asked, if you wanted to try and guess the photocard.” Renjun sighed, gesturing at the stack of Red Velvet albums.

“Of course, the psychic shall now work his magic.” Jaemin stepped up and started going through the CDs and stopped where it felt right, pulling it out. “I’m 70% sure this one has Irene.”

“Great, unite the Irene-League. So, are we getting him anything else?” Renjun asked, as they waddled to the counter to pay.

“Flowers?”

“I’m pretty sure the room will be flooded with so many flowers you won’t be able to do your homework anywhere, but on the floor for the upcoming two weeks.”

“True. Let’s just go with a plushie.”

“Remember the last time you bought that teddy bear? I’ve never known Jeno could look that judgemental.”

“Is that a no?”

“That is a hard no, my dear friend.”

“Aw, come on.”

Jaemin tried to whine his way into getting Renjun to agree, but the other remained on his standpoint, without wavering. He clung onto him during the checkout, the college girl behind the counter smiling, as she scanned and Renjun paid.

“Can you gift wrap that?” Jaemin asked, as the money was transferred from Renjun’s account. “He’s terrible at gift wrapping! Last year, I got my birthday present in old copies of tests.”

“Of course, I can take that task off your boyfriend’s hands.” She beamed and rushed off with the album in hands.

Jaemin didn’t move off Renjun, but he felt the other stiffen under him. It had happened before. Chenle even called them boyfriends daily. Renjun was out and loud, so that wasn’t the problem. Jaemin pushed his head forward, pressing his own cheek against Renjun’s.

“Do you not wanna be my boyfriend?” Jaemin chirped and Renjun immediately had a hand on his cheek, pushing him away.

“Shut up Nana, of course I wouldn’t go and snatch you away from Jeno. Plus you’re way too annoying, I’d rather join the “notice me, Yukhei-Senpai” squad.”

“I am hurt! Deeply hurt!” Jaemin tried to get back to nuzzling into Renjun, but he was a lot stronger than one would expect a tiny person like him to be. But somehow, he felt a little weird about it now, too. And his heart was back to beating abnormally fast, which had happened quite a few times in the last days.

Was this being disloyal? Was he cheating on Jeno before he could even confess to him? Holy shit and with Renjun? This was probably the actual reason he should go to hell…

…

Jaemin twirled his knife and it turned into a sword, that he slashed across the troll’s chest, the thing finally falling down lifelessly. It was a pretty impressive trick, if Jaemin may say so himself. It hadn’t stopped him from already getting killed three times tonight. But at least he looked cool doing so.

Jaemin stepped over the body and up the rocky path. He couldn’t remember being here before, so that counted as a success. He had noticed that there were caves in the mountains and if he were some hell-sent guy, he’d probably hide his trophy there. Now, he only had to live for long enough to get into one.

Jaemin managed to reach the entrance of one, which was probably already a personal record, but some serpent darted out of the dark and bit through his neck, clean and mercilessly and everything turned black, the game over music that had started playing every time he got killed since the day before yesterday, echoing in his mind.

Fucking hell.

…

Technically speaking, April 23rd was still too cold for a Baskin Robins Chocolate ice cream cake. But Jeno loved ice cream and dark chocolate, so they always had had it, ever since middle school, when their parents started trusting them with pocket money.

So, Jaemin, Renjun, Jisung, and Chenle marched into Jeno’s hospital room with a very well packaged cake, that made Jaemin’s hands freeze off. The room was empty, which made him hesitate, because it was eleven in the morning on a Sunday, the perfect time to visit someone in a coma. And it looked like people had been there, because of the flower bouquets stacking on the side board.

Chenle and Renjun were already starting to sing Happy Birthday and Jaemin shoved the annoyance over people leaving Jeno alone on this day aside and loudly joined in, poking Jisung, until he mumbled along.

“We brought cake.” Chenle announced, already dragging over the table.

“Too bad we’ll have to take care of this, because it’s already melting.”

They unwrapped the cardboard and discarded the ice packs to the side, starting to dig right into the cake with the plastic spoons.

After they all felt sick and the remaining chocolate ice cream had been gifted to the nurse checking on Jeno, they whipped out the board games. Jeno’s grandmother came in the afternoon and joined their fierce game of Uno, kicking all their butts.

They didn’t stay too long in the evening, because Jisung was hungry and they decided to get some chicken. It was the first time in months, that Jaemin almost accidentally addressed Jeno, wanted to grab him, wanted to lean closer. But he wasn’t there.

Renjun didn’t fight back, when Jaemin took his hand once the other two had left, going the other direction. He laced their fingers together and Renjun squeezed back a little. Jaemin wasn’t dumb, he also wasn’t that selfish. He knew that this was just as hard on Renjun, as it was on him.

“There were a lot of flowers.” Renjun mumbled.

“Yeah.”

“He can’t hear flowers, though. I hope he’s not sad.”

“Jeno’s Jeno. He probably understands.”

“I understand too, fuck, this was so hard today. It’s always hard, but today… it was fucking hard! But he doesn’t deserve being given up on, he’s not dead.” Renjun whispered the last words.

“He’s not. He’s alive and he will wake up soon.”

If Jaemin managed to solve the remaining tasks. This was on him, he had to step up his game! Not only for his own sake, but also for his friends’, Jeno’s family… everyone. He had to find the trophy! There was no other choice!

…

Jaemin cursed internally, biting his tongue to avoid any words leaving his mouth. The snakes guarding the caves were vicious, the most aggressive monsters Jaemin had encountered so far. Getting to the caves, Jaemin had gotten good at over the last weeks. He was okay-skilled with the sword, his aim at shooting had improved a lot, and his reaction speed had enhanced.

But the snakes? They were just pure evil. They snug up on Jaemin and struck with speed and aggression, making little work of him and sending him back to his starting point.

It made exploring the caves tedious and time consuming. Not to mention, that he sometimes forgot whether or not he had already been at one, because there were so many and he sometimes was ripped from his dream all out of sudden.

It was already the second week of May and he had been trying to find this trophy for three weeks and one day at this point. Jaemin was starting to really feel the pressure, but there was only so much sleep he could get, before feeling completely rested. Every morning, when he slipped on the pearl bracelet and looked at the paper, there was one day less, the forth circle still empty and taunting.

 

Jaemin groaned, rubbing his forehead, which was funny because he didn’t feel anything, staring at the thick trees. It was frustrating and he understood why Mark and Donghyuck had made it their rule not to curse or scream. But that didn’t prove nearly as tough a task, as just picking himself up again and again.

He was scared that time would run out.

The paper in his pocket felt heavy and Jaemin wondered if it was trying to give him a hint. Thinking outside the box. Maybe, he was thinking too straight forward. Maybe all these caves, where he’d put the trophy… were just a distraction? For him to lose time?

Jaemin felt tears of frustration pooling in his eyes and crouched down, starting to draw patterns into the sand. If he failed this… god no. He couldn’t fail. He just couldn’t. He remembered Renjun’s red eyes on Monday, after Jeno’s birthday, and the Chinese paying for his coffee, which had been their agreed upon punishment for breaking the no-crying deal. Jaemin hadn’t cried. Somehow, there were no tears left as he thought of his task of saving Jeno. But his heart hurt and it hurt even worse when he saw Renjun suffering, too.

Someone tapped his shoulder and Jaemin’s head snapped up.

His breath got caught in his lungs, as he stared at the person behind him.

“You’re looking the wrong direction, Nana. Seriously, think outside the box, Kun-Hyung told you, so, think the least likely place to hide a huge ass trophy if you didn’t want someone to find. Donghyuck seems like an air-head, but he has really good ideas.”

Jaemin found his voice, too many thoughts rushing through his head.

“In the desert then?”

“Yep.” The P popped off his lips. “Good luck! I have to leave, the spell only lasts for two minutes, then I will be visible for the guys from hell. And you can’t have any help.”

“Wait…”

“I’m sure you can do it, and I’m looking forward to properly talking to you, Nana.”

“Wait, Jeno!” But the figure of the boy, smiling and his eyes upturned into the cute crescents, had faded into nothing so quickly, Jaemin wondered, if maybe he had just hallocinated him coming and talking to him.

Jaemin got up and turned to the seemingly endless nothingness, where the battles were continuing in the distance. He let his sword materialise in his hand and marched forward, looking around the plain lands for somewhere you might have a golden trophy waiting to be picked up.

…

The full extent of Jeno’s words only hit Jaemin the next day, during the extremely boring geography lesson, during which he couldn’t help but let his mind wander.

Jeno knew about the deal, about the guys from hell, and that he couldn’t get help. So he probably also knew, that the devil had made it because Jaemin was in love with him. And he was looking forward to talking about it.

Right? That was what he had been talking about, right?

“I think we need to go to the arcade after school. You look like you need to play at the arcade.” Renjun decided, poking Jaemin’s cheek.

“But weren’t we supposed to look at Jisung and Chenle’s presentation, if it was good and stuff?” Jaemin mumbled.

“Oh right, you have your phone in your locker. They’re busy, hanging out with the cheerleaders to watch the basketball team.”

“Because of Yukhei?”

“Of course. And because the cheerleaders find the idea of a gbf exciting.”

“I wish I knew what you were talking about.”

“Gay best friend. I’m already throwing up.”

“Can’t be that bad, if you already know the word. Not to mention, I’d take some cheerleader who’s just trying to become friends with me because I’m gay over the morons who don’t even dare to get near me within two steps, because they’re scared to catch homosexuality.”

“True.” They fell silent again, as Renjun scanned over his notes for English class, hand absentmindedly stroking Jaemin’s cheek. His mind drifted back off, to Jeno. Somehow, seeing him last night made him miss his friend ever harder. But under Renjun’s gently drawing patterns on his skin, the pain over it faded soon.

…

The desert had far less monsters. There were some aggressive ones that jumped out of the sand, but with as much practice as Jaemin had by now, he was quick to chop off heads and march past them. The actual problem with the desert was, that it was huge. Jaemin walked for the entirety of his dream, without getting killed, but he got nowhere. Yes, the fighting got closer, but not close enough that he could even tell what was going on.

He woke several mornings, wanting to go back to sleep to cover more ground, but he did have to go to school.

 

In real life, the summer started picking up, the sun getting hotter every day. Chenle was the first one to moan over the heat, as he fanned himself with his shirt. Jaemin didn’t mind that, but he did mind that time seemed to fly by. It was May 18th and the paper in his pocket was unchanged, save for the countdown.

“Guys, the ultimate tragedy happened.” Jisung folded his awkward long limbs under the table, face upset. Jaemin reached over to pinch his cheek in a loving gesture and Jisung let him.

“Yukhei has a girlfriend.” Chenle supplied, flopping down next to his other half, wearing a matching frown.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Renjun mumbled between his food, not sounding sorry at all.

“I really thought he might be into guys.” Chenle complained and Jisung nodded along.

“He treated us to ice cream so many times.”

Jaemin nodded, like he deeply understood. He didn’t, because Yukhei seemed to flirt with anything that had two legs and was at an appropriate age. More or less. He didn’t seem to have a limit regarding age upwards. The music teacher had been very flustered.

“And she’s so pretty and nice, I can’t even blame him.” Jisung sighed, eyes searching the cafeteria, eventually falling to the jock table, free of any Yukhei or Yukhei-girlfriend.

“Well, maybe there’s someone else in this school you might like? Someone more single?” Jaemin suggested.

“No, all other guys are either homophobic, gross, immature, or a combination of those.” Chenle wrinkled his nose.

“Well, there’s us.” Jaemin gestured between him and Renjun, immediately earning mocked throwing up from the rest of the table. “Hey, come on! I would date Renjun!” he whined loudly.

“That’s nothing to joke about.” Renjun’s finger poked into his arm painfully.

Jaemin tried to pout, but somehow, he felt like he had messed this one up. It wasn’t really a joke… he would definitely date Renjun. And Jeno. Both. Couldn’t you date two people? Jaemin liked them both, why did he have to choose? This was simply unfair…

…

Jaemin wondered, if a hole in the ground was a trap, or a wonderful place to hide a trophy. He had spent days getting here, he’d want to kick his own butt if he climbed down there, only to be killed by some new shit that Mark and Donghyuck had come up with to make him fail immediately. On the other hand, there really wasn’t much else around him and the battle was coming closer and honestly… Jaemin wasn’t that confident in his self-taught swordsmanship.

He let the gun he carried morph into a smaller one, so he could keep it in his hand as he climbed down the ladder. His ears had long attuned to the noises that’d warn him of something getting ready to launch at him and rip through his dream-land-body.

But there was nothing. Jaemin hopped off the last rung and turned, taking the room in. The light reflected on a huge trophy, that stood in the middle and Jaemin gasped softly, rushing through the room and immediately putting his hands on it. The metal was cool and sleek under his fingers and Jaemin almost screamed in relief. Almost.

A moment later, the air vibrated and the two guys in their emerald velvet suits appeared.

“You found it!” Mark’s eyes were saucer sized, eyebrows like seagulls over them, which ruined any scary effect the red orbs might have had.

“I told you it was placed stupidly, oh my god, we should have just put it in the mud grave behind the snake pit. Come on, now we’ll have everyone on our backs, because someone succeeded at this, it’ll be so annoying!” Donghyuck clung to Mark’s arm and Jaemin watched in mild amusement.

“Well, you really made it hard.” Jaemin assured.

“Yeah, we know.” Donghyuck still looked offended.

“Honestly, I’m really impressed by your anger management, so many people break the rules, rather than running out of time. So, well… time for a reward.” Mark tapped the trophy and it turned into a red pearl, that rolled over the floor, until it hit Jaemin’s dirty boots. He quickly leaned down to pick it up.

“Thanks, you two. This was actually quite fun, if I weren’t on a tight schedule to save my…” Jaemin didn’t have a word to put to it, so he just flapped his hands.

“Really?” Mark and Donghyuck asked in perfect synch, perking up like puppies.

“Well, yeah. Sure.”

“Thank you. See, it was all my great idea!” Donghyuck started and Jaemin wouldn’t mind sticking around listening to get another fight, but he felt himself wake up and a moment later, the game world was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since 2018 is coming to a close (it’s the 31st in my time zone) and the NCT channels are uploading all their “memories”, I was getting a bit nostalgic. I only really got into NCT this year and it was a great year, IMO. Amazing releases, new achievements, and so many precious memories from those 18 dorks. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2019 holds for them. If you’re reading this in 2019: Happy New Year~
> 
>  
> 
> The opposing virtue to wrath is patience, it’s represented by the colour red and the bear. I had such a great time writing Markhyuck eternally bickering. 
> 
> Representing greed was Jaehyun, inspired by the scene in Simons Says MV, where he leans against the Lambo, plus his consistent styling with the gloves. Which sin and which member(s) should be next?
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts in the comments ~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday Kun and Happy new year~

On Fridays, school ended early, so Jaemin ran into Mrs Lee when he entered the hospital room after dropping Renjun off at ballet lessons.

“Ah, Jaemin, it’s good to meet you! I was meaning to ask you a favour. Me and my husband are going on a business trip over the next weekend and I feel uncomfortable leaving Jeno all alone for three days. Since you’re always visiting so loyally, maybe you could call me once a day, when you’re here? Just so I can quickly talk to him?”

Jaemin nodded eagerly, wanting to help and also glad that Jeno’s mother was still caring so much.

“Wonderful. You have my number, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Alright, we can talk about the specifics then, I have to rush, my appointment at the cosmetic studio is in ten minutes, and thank you again, Jaemin.”

She hurried out the door and Jaemin couldn’t help, but chuckle.

“You certainly got your occasional confusion from her. It’s just me today, to watch the newest shit, because Renjun has extra practices on Fridays now, until the festival. With Chenle’s rehearsals and Jisung’s work on props, apparently I’m the only one without much of a life.” He laughed drily.

Jaemin knew that his mother was worried, because he used to do more things outside of school. She was easily fed off with the excuse that he had to study for the college entrance exam and didn’t have time. It was a lie, of course, but Jaemin couldn’t really bring himself to do what he had always done with Jeno… without Jeno.

Plus this soul saving ate a lot of time.

“Well, let’s see, what I put into the playlist to watch. Oh! Right! EXO-CBX concert performances. Xiumin’s solo, I’m telling you, that was no joke. My bias remains Baekhyun, of course, but I can appreciate art when I see it. So, no worries, you won’t get bored.” Jaemin was about the hit the play button, but her startled so badly he dropped his phone, when an unknown voice cut in:

“Well, I sure am glad to hear that.”

It really shouldn’t surprise him that much anymore, since this was already the fifth time some random guy he had never seen before turned up and seemed to know him. But it still did.

Jaemin held his chest and the guy raised a black eyebrow, seemingly judging him hard. He was as intimidating as the greed guy had been, only he seemed to openly judge Jaemin on top of the aura of being better than him.

“I have an alternative task for you to do to offer, though.”

“Uh?”

The man sighed and pushed off the wall against which he had been leaning. He was in a dark blue suit, simple and smart, with a tie over a crisp white shirt. “For someone who managed to pass four tasks with so little difficulty, I would have expected you to be a bit… faster to catch on.”

Jaemin frowned but held back from insulting some immortal hell creature he didn’t even know the name of. Sounded like a bad idea.

“Well, I’m not in need of making people waste useless time in video game settings or searching high and low for shit I lost. If you’re smart, you can pass my task easily. For me personally, the questions are complete no-brainers, but I do have multiple phds I accumulated over the years. I don’t know about some… high schooler.” he looked at Jaemin down his nose and wow, this was one prideful person. He opened his hand, and a small stack of paper, looking like the sheets they got for tests, appeared, held together with a horse-shaped paper-clip.

He passed it to Jaemin, who poked at the rather cute clip, until the guy cleared his throat, looking a bit red on the cheeks and not even nearly as intimidating as seconds ago.

“Don’t break that, I got it from my boyfriend. He likes cute things. I mean, I totally don’t but, he gave it to me, so.”

“Right.” Jaemin nodded, holding back a cheeky grin. He wondered why kind of person this man’s boyfriend would be.

“Anyway. Those are the questions you have to answer.” He checked the expensive, flashy watch on his wrist. “If you finish, shoot me a text, Woo gave you the number. I have to go, I have a presentation at Woori Bank in five minutes.”

Jaemin nodded, scanning over the questions.

“You are allowed get one wrong, if there’s more mistakes… you fail.” The man smirked, the corner of his mouth digging into his cheek deeply.

Jaemin nodded and he disappeared into thin air.

There were twenty pages of questions, five per paper, so a hundred in total. It started off with some equation that looked like a citation from Shakespeare, rather than algebra, over having to give a constructive analysis of the business strategy of Samsung industries, answer the question of why systematic racism existed, and ended in trick questions, such as “How was it possible that every single person in an aeroplane crash died, but two people survived?”.

On the back was a handwritten note “No help from others, you may use the library or google, but you have to come to your own conclusions, a direct copy of an answer will be counted as a mistake. No need to cite, I will catch any copy.”

Jaemin groaned deeply and stared at his phone. It was 4:13 pm now, so he had the full weekend to get this done. Hopefully Renjun would let him copy his homework. Too bad some of these questions seemed impossible to solve, even if he had his complete remaining time frame left to answer them.

“Well fuck me, Jeno, fuck me. Where on earth do I quickly learn how to solve shit like this?” Jaemin mumbled and decided to just flip the first pages. And the next. And those… Well, he could answer the weird trick questions.

…

“Jaemin! We’re going to be late! Your grandmother doesn’t appreciate tardiness, get here right now, the school work can wait this time.”

Jaemin rubbed his eyes and lifted his head from where he had been staring on the page. He had gotten through the questions that could be answered using google and thinking just hard enough, and the trick questions that were more obvious. It turned out that the fifth circle on the death angel’s paper filled in with more purple with every question he got right, which helped tremendously and made Jaemin want to cry whenever it didn’t progress after he had written an answer down that was wrong.

The problem was, that all the stuff that seemed do-able was solved now, and he still had 30 questions left, that were needlessly hard and took forever, slowing down his originally good pace to that of a snail on a soapy underground. Really, the Sunday family-lunch could take place without him for this once, couldn’t it?

“Mom, I won’t be able to finish homework if I take a break now.”

“Then you will stay up later and finish it. I don’t want to call again.”

Jaemin cursed under his breath and threw his pen aside. Well, maybe these equations made more sense once he returned. Brilliant insights over food would be greatly appreciated.

…

“Injunie!”

Jaemin attached himself to his smaller friend, who started digging his elbow into his gut immediately. “What do you need?”

“I was simply greeting you on this beautiful Monday morning and this is what I get in return? Are we not friends?” Quite honestly, it wasn’t a beautiful morning, because today was the 22nd of May and that left him with exactly 1 month on his deadline and 26 unsolved, ridiculous “no-brainer” questions at home.

“No, you were using the Nana-needs-something-voice.”

“You differentiate between voices I use?”

“One has to, when spending enough time with you.”

“I always knew you loved me, deep inside!” Jaemin squeaked and squished Renjun harder, despite the pain in his gut the sharp elbow was causing. “And maybe, because you love me so much, you could let me copy your homework?”

“What? You didn’t do your homework? You were over those papers all Saturday! How did you not finish?”

“Those were… mock exams. I totally forgot about everything else. Because they were so difficult.”

Renjun continued to struggle against him “Okay, yes, you may copy my homework, because I’m feeling generous.”

“Thank you! You’re the literal best!” Jaemin managed to press a kiss against Renjun’s ear, before getting hit in the groin and deflating like a popped balloon, curling up in pain.

He did not regret his actions. Given the chance, he was going to kiss Renjun’s ear again. And his cheek. And his lips and oh fuck, he was so going to go to hell, wasn’t he?

…

Jaemin felt his soul slowly leave his body, as he wrote the last line of what x equalled down, quickly taking the paper to see the circle fill in a little more.

“Jeno. I did it! I solved that shit, fucking hell, I am so going to get 100 points in the math exam, after I managed to get through this!” he couldn’t help scream a little, waving his countdown paper in the air, that still had 30 days left.

“Now the only answer left is “What doesn’t get less, when you share it?” and I already tried to answer it with air, water, homework and hunger, but apparently, that’s not it. But, since I can leave one empty, I’ll just turn it in as it is.” Jaemin mumbled, going through the sheets once more, to see all the scribbling and crossing out he had done.

Before he could whip out his phone to text to hell – because that was becoming a regular occurrence now – the door opened and when he looked up, he saw a very unusual guest slip past the threshold. There were only 15 minutes left before visiting hours ended, so normally, people were already leaving, rather than coming at this time.

“Oh, Jaemin. I didn’t know you’d still be here.”

Jaemin smiled up from his makeshift-desk to Jeno’s sister. “I’m always here, you know, so Jeno knows he’s still important to me and he isn’t alone.”

“That’s… that’s really admirable.” She cleared her throat and carefully stepped closer to the bed, like she might break something. She clearly had never watched the nurses turn Jeno. They weren’t treating him like a glass-puppet for sure.

“Hey, Jeno…” her voice was soft and she kept glancing over to where Jaemin was packing up. “Uh. Do I really just talk to him?”

“Yeah, sure. He might be able to hear you. Haven’t you come before?” He couldn’t help the snappy tone.

“Yes, I have. But I didn’t… I was always with my parents.”

Jaemin sighed. He knew it was hard on her. But he wished she’d push herself a bit more. It wasn’t like Jaemin enjoyed his time here.

“Well, yes, just talk as normal.”

“Okay. Hey Jeno, it’s Noona.” Jaemin zipped his backpack shut with a loud rip. “I’m sorry I didn’t come much.”

Jaemin pushed the table back into the corner.

“Is it normal that there’s so many ups and downs on the chart?”

Jaemin looked up at the question directed towards him. “Yeah. It’s supposed to be like that, if something is off, the machine will make a warning noise.”

“Oh. Okay, I see. Did… did something ever happen?”

Jaemin swallowed. Yes, there had been this death angel showing up and then he had to make a fucking deal with the devil, no biggie…

“No. He’s doing well, due to wake up any day, according to the doctors. He can breathe by himself, there’s no more bleeding, all broken bones healed well… and yeah. Everything’s peachy.”

She nodded and stepped away from the bed.

“I read the longer one is in a coma, the less likely it’s for them to really wake up.”

Jaemin fixed her in a glare now. “That doesn’t apply to the individual case, however, it’s just a middle number.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’m just… it’s hard.”

“And you think it’s only hard for you? You think I have the best time sitting here, I don’t want to be out and about WITH Jeno, performing at the school festival, like we normally did, going to Karaoke, like we normally did, not worrying, because my best friend was the victim of drunk driving and if we had just sung one more song that day, it wouldn’t have happened?”

Jaemin swallowed, blinking fast.

“No, I… Jaemin, I didn’t mean that. It came out all wrong. I really admire you for still coming so much, for being such a good friend. He’s really lucky to have you.”

Jaemin nodded, feeling a bit weak. “Thanks, Noona. Sorry for snapping at you but… I don’t want him to feel alone, you know? I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you came from time to time.”

She glanced back at Jeno “Okay. I’ll try and be a better sister in the future.”

…

Jaemin actually forgot to send the text, after he went to have a small dinner with Jeno’s sister. He did remember it when he was about to doze off in his bed, later in the night. He jerked back up, scrambling to get his phone, pulling up the old chat. He sent the message that he was done and searched for the papers, expecting the guy to show up within a few minutes, as the others had until now.

He had filled the blank space in with “a vacuum”, which apparently was the wrong answer, but he had gone to school for long enough to know that it was better to write just anything, than to turn in blank.

Jaemin almost threw his (cracked) phone, when he actually received an answer for the first time.

[Thank you for contacting me. I’m eagerly awaiting the results. I have a free slot at 5 am, May 24th. Please confirm your appointment.]

“What the actual hell?” Jaemin mumbled to himself and shot back a simple

[k, see u]

before setting an alarm for the ungodly hour. The dude had said something about a presentation at a bank, hadn’t he? It should come as a surprise he was pretentious enough to give out “appointments” to high schoolers, who were just trying to fulfil questionable deals.

…

Jaemin felt severely underdressed in his pyjamas – still not the silken ones, it was getting too hot for them now, thank god – while the stranger from hell stood in his room in another suit, looking important and posh.

But when he had to turn in his “test” at 5 am, he was certainly not going to get up any earlier to get ready. He also wasn’t sure anything he had in his closet was going to impress this man.

“So, you managed to finish?” he asked, bored, holding out his hand. Jaemin handed over the stack of pages, that looked far worse for wear. The guy wrinkled his nose at them and they straightened out in his grip, the paper back to pristine white, like it came fresh from the printer.

He scanned over the answers, flipping through the pages at incredible speed, face blank, until he reached the end.

Jaemin felt himself involuntarily grip his bedframe tighter. He knew he had answered everything correctly, save for question number 98. But he had one pass, so it had to be fine.

But what, if it wasn’t? What, if the paper from the death angel was wrong? Or he was going to not be allowed to pass, because he didn’t manage to figure the quiz out?

He guy looked up, face in a frown.

“You didn’t do bad. But you didn’t manage to answer one of the easiest questions. Why is that?”

Jaemin swallowed. “It didn’t seem that easy to me.”

“Hm. Evidentially. I’m a bit surprised, still. Because you signed the contract for a person you love romantically.”

Jaemin furrowed his brows. What did that have to do with sharing something?

The man stepped ahead, his black suit melting into an emerald velvet one. The jacket was surprisingly casual for a person so stuck up, the same college-cut that Mark and Donghyuck had worn, studded along the collar and the zipper. His eyes were violet, still just as hard as before, and the paper in his hand turned into a pearl the same colour, save for the paper clip, that was next to it in his palm.

“I wouldn’t have expected some child to be able to solve this, good job. If in the future, if you need help with anything to be proud of… I might be able to help you out, just shoot me a text.” He flipped back his hair, that reflected blue in the dim light of Jaemin’s bedside lamp.

Truthfully, he didn’t plan to make any more questionable deal with supernatural beings in the future. Because there was no way that was going to be free.

“Oh, and by the way, the thing that won’t get less, when you share it, is love.”

Jaemin felt his jaw drop, as he wrapped his mind around that.

“Wait, how…?”

“Well, you know it from first-hand experience, don’t you? Just because you love Renjun, you don’t love Jeno any less, don’t you?”

How on earth did all these strangers know his deep secrets? This was just disrespectful…

“Wait, but I have to choose one of them eventually, so it’s actually not true.”

“You have to choose? Why?”

“Well, you can’t be with two people. And Renjun already knows I’m in love with Jeno, and so does Jeno, so I’ll be choosing him. It’d be ridiculous not to, after all this…”

“That seems pretty sad. Why not be with both?”

Jaemin furrowed his brows. “But there’s only two people in a relationship.”

“Right, and it was Adam and Eve in paradise, not Adam and Steve, so how dare you like a man.”

“Hey, that’s not…” Jaemin hesitated. Were there relationships with more than two people? And the mainstream media just never really covered it, just as the rest of LGBTQ+?

“Think about it. Maybe do it quick, or you’ll possibly get a trauma… wait, no, I’m pretty sure nothing can prepare you for the next task. Alright, I have another appointment, pleasure making business with you.”

Jaemin stared at the vibrating air and shuddered. What the hell was coming up next?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The virtue opposing Pride is Humility, it’s represented by the horse and the colour violet.
> 
> I don’t have to reveal who appeared last chapter, so here’s a hint for the next chapter: there’ll be more than one person from hell, again, and a sin that I know some are looking forward to ~ 
> 
> Thank you for reading, please let me know your thoughts in the comments.


	7. Chapter 7

Jaemin was one of those people who loved PE lessons. You didn’t have to study for that, you didn’t have to wrack your brain until it was mush – and quite honestly, after the pride-dude’s quiz from hell (pun intended), he deserved, like, a 2-month break.

Because of the high temperatures, their class was scheduled for swimming lessons, which were a yearly thing. Some hated it, especially those who couldn’t swim prior to starting high school, but Jaemin was one of those who loved them just as much as any other sport. The water was cool and you worked out but didn’t notice you were sweating.

There was no better summer-sport.

Renjun, on the other hand, hated all sports that weren’t dancing – so everything they did in PE lessons.

“I’ll be the drowning person.”

“Injunie, the teacher said we had to take turns. You’ll be graded on the lifesaving technique, too.”

“They can’t make me fail because of PE, so honestly, I couldn’t care less.”

“Okay, well, guess I’ll be saving you ten times then. You can rely on me!” Jaemin grinned and Renjun rolled his eyes and took off, towards the middle of the school pool.

Jaemin watched him and waited on the side, but he got distracted by three figures, that were chilling on the end of the pool, he hadn’t noticed before. Those most definitely were no students by their looks and… was that a cocktail with a paper umbrella? ON SCHOOL GROUNDS?

“Nana? Hello? I need saving!” Renjun called and Jaemin tore his eyes away and pushed himself off the side.

Since PE was taught separated by sex, Jaemin considered himself lucky with Renjun, one of the smallest guys, as his partner. He still accidentally kicked him a few times and Renjun rated his saving-experience three out of ten starts. Rude.

While the Chinese took back off into the middle, Jaemin looked down the pool once more, and the three guys still were, and that was definitely a cocktail. Another one was splashing water violently (totally against pool rules, but okay) at the third guy, who then fell into the pool and got dunked under water by the splashing one, who held him there and held him and held him and…

“Nana, I’m starting to think you want me to drown.”

The third time Jaemin looked over, he finally started to wonder how their teacher hadn’t said anything yet. The guy who had been splashing water was clearly trying to drown the other one, while the third was sipping a goddamn cocktail and… the teacher didn’t even look their direction, despite the loud noise they were making.

Oh well. Jaemin was an idiot.

He couldn’t see them, because he didn’t have a connection to hell. And they were here because of him, to give him his new task. Hopefully he was going to have to hard-core chill or something.

“Na Jaemin, your partner is pretending to drown, maybe you would start saving him?” the PE teacher hollered.

 

Jaemin held precautionary distance from the pool, since he didn’t want to get his school uniform wet. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, so if he managed to take a dive, he was going to really get into trouble.

The trio was still on the end of the pool and he quickly marched towards them, the guy with the cocktail waving with a bright smile, probably having expected him.

“Hey, you two, behave! We have a guest!” the man scolded, pulling one of the other two from the water. His hair stuck to his head and Jaemin was tempted to remind him that there was a rule that enforced caps in the pool. But was he going to care? Probably no. If he had ignored the signs, he was going to ignore Jaemin, too.

“Hi, Jaemin! Wow, this is so exciting, we hardly ever get any contract holders, because Mark and Donghyuckie usually take them out and if they don’t, then Doyoung does. Props for solving that quiz, he’s really been making the questions more ridiculous every time.”

“He changes them?”

“Oh yes, who do you take him for? He won’t use them twice!” the guy took a sip from his cocktail.

The third guy had climbed from the pool and Jaemin was impressed by the guts it had to take to wear bathing shorts this tiny.

“Alright, so, our task is actually really fun.” The one who had been trying to drown the blond earlier beamed “You get to write a book!”

“What?” Jaemin weakly asked. He had 29 days left. Writing a book must take more than that. People made money off that.

“Winkeu, you can’t leave away half the story! Here, take a sip, you look a bit pale, Jaemin.” Jaemin was passed the cocktail and eyed it warily. “You don’t have to start from scratch. We have the outlines done for you, you only need to fill in a bit. Yuta, would you?” Cocktail guy turned to blondie with the tiny shorts, who nodded and opened his hand, in which a book materialised.

“That’s right. We have a story, we thought of… well, kinda, we had some other contract holder write it. Anyway, we took out main parts and you have to fill them back in. Obviously, it’s a romance novel, and we took out key scenes, such as the first meeting and the moment the leads realise they’re in love. You need to come up with something.”

Yuta draped himself over cocktail guy, fanning himself with the book.

“It has to be interesting. Like, you don’t have to write like Shakespeare, but it needs to be, like… new.” The first guy explained, visibly excited. He was sort of cute, when he wasn’t trying to drown people…

“Taking inspiration from real life helps.” Cocktail guy suggested “If you’re not drinking that, may I have it back, please?”

Jaemin looked at the drink in his hand. “Oh, yes, I can’t, I’m a minor.” The three gasped.

Wait, they had come to his school, without realising he was a minor?

“Wait, Yuta, he can’t read the erotic scenes!”

“Or write them!”

“He’s just a poor, innocent baby!”

“Taeil-Hyung, he’s not…”

“Baby! Yuta, take them out!”

“It’s half the book!”

“Is it really?”

“Obviously it is, with your two thirsty asses directing the storyline.”

“Oh, look who’s calling the kettle black…”

“I am not even nearly as bad as the two of you! If I wasn’t here to stop you, you’d be making out in the middle of shopping malls in broad daylight.”

“But Winkeu, you’re too cute to resist.”

Jaemin watched in fascination, as the other two started pulling the first guy’s cheeks, the cocktail guy he had heard being called Taeil-Hyung wrapping around his arm like a boa constrictor.

Wow, these guys were a mess. And he was friends with Chenle and Jisung!

The bell interrupted the weird ritual unfolding in front of him, and the blond seemed to remember he had to do something to the book.

“Right, so, Jaemin, there will be some really blank pages in here, you can just ignore those. But all those that have a page number, you should fill. If the chapter is a little shorter, that’s acceptable, but don’t take too extreme shortcuts. We will only let you pass if the story is moving and somewhat original. And it needs to be your own work. That should be obvious, no help.”

He turned the book with the open side down and shook it, and it looked like actual words were falling out of it, into the pool, where they disappeared.

“Alright, there you go” Yuta held the book towards Jaemin, who took it.

“We’re looking forward to your work!” Taeil was still clinging onto the other guy.

“I’m sure you can come up with something good. Maybe it’ll even help you in your situation!” the first guy suggested, before starting to try and get rid of his parasitic partner, but he wouldn’t budge and they disappeared into thin air in front of Jaemin.

He chuckled to himself, until his eyes landed on the book cover. It was plain, nothing written on neither the front, nor the back. He opened it and scanned through the first pages, but the bell rung for the second time and Jaemin remembered that he had classes to attend, so he slammed the book shut and rushed to the changing room.

…

“It’s unfair, they’re too good looking.”

“I can’t even be jealous like this.”

“You two are pathetic.” Renjun gave Chenle and Jisung a judging glance, as the two stared over to the jock table, where Yukhei and his girlfriend Doyeon were having lunch.

“You just don’t know what it’s like to be in love with someone, who’s loving someone else.” Jisung whined.

“And then you can’t even be jealous!” Chenle added.

“Oh, believe me, I do know.” Renjun sighed “Nana, what the hell are you reading? This doesn’t even have a title… are those empty pages?”

Jaemin slapped the book shut. “Yep. Got the book for… uh… training. Creative writing.”

“Creative writing? Since when are you writing something voluntarily?”

“Uh, since it’s for the college entrance exam.”

Renjun was raising an eyebrow, Jaemin knew from how his face moved thought it as hidden behind his thick fringe.

“Right, I’m not going to judge you that you finally decided to put your dreams of being a mermaid into a novel.”

“Injunie, why are you so cruel with me?” Jaemin loudly bemoaned.

“Okay, can we come back on topic? We were complaining about how good Yukhei and Doyeon look together.”

Jaemin looked over to the table. Was he supposed to agree? Or deny it?

“Uh, they’ll have pretty kids?”

Chenle and Jisung screeched.

“Nana, we are in high school. No one, wait, let me rephrase that, hopefully no one is having any kids yet.” Renjun sighed and rubbed his forehead “Seriously, it’s like being with toddlers.”

“On a different topic, the teacher asked how many tickets I need for the musical. Jisung’s coming, obviously, and so are my mom and my aunts and grandparents, duh. Nana, are you coming?”

“Wait, when exactly is the festival?”

“On the 24th.”

“Well, of course I’m coming. I’ll cheer very loudly.”

“Awesome, I knew you wouldn’t disappoint!” Chenle pumped his fist in the air. “And then, of course, Jeno’s also getting a ticket.”

“So, I was going to make a sign for Chenle, of course. But if you want to, we can make it together.” Jisung generously offered.

“If we talk about it here, it’s not going to be a surprise.” Jaemin whined.

“Like it’s a surprise if you literally always make one if there’s even the slightest reason for one. This is like a sign factory.” Renjun groaned “And if you make one for me, I’ll post your ugly selfies to the school facebook group, Jisung.”

“What? No! You can’t! I thought you deleted them!”

…

Jaemin read through the book within a day by staying up until 3 am. Thankfully, it wasn’t too thick and the pages he had to fill seemed manageable.

There were just two problems:

The first was, that Jaemin was about as imaginative as a rock.

The second was… that he was deeply confused by the story line that was provided. It didn’t leave room for doubt who of the characters ended up together. But what seemed like a stereotypical love-triangle between a girl and two guys at first, ended with all three of them becoming a couple? A tri-uple? Had he not been as bone tired as he was, he would have probably not even been able to fall asleep because of this unexpected turn.

 

The next morning on his way to school, he was glued to his phone, trying to figure out, if that was… a thing. Three people in a relationship.

Because if it was, maybe, all his problems could be fixed. In the long run. After… he explained… polyamory to Renjun and Jeno and… oh god, this was gearing up to be difficult.

But first, he had to understand the concept himself, this seemed unnecessarily difficult.

 

Jaemin slid past the teacher in the hallway and jumped into his chair behind Renjun, who gave him an eye-roll, but today, Jaemin was filled with new determination. There was nothing wrong with him and he could happily allow all these feelings he had for his other best friend. Even having history as the first lesson of the day didn’t seem that terrible anymore!

“Don’t say anything, I know my timing is brilliant.”

“I wasn’t going to, dummy. And it’s not.”

…

Jaemin clicked his pen and stared at the blank page. First meeting. That shouldn’t be too hard to write, right? Only, it had to be interesting. What was an interesting first meeting?

How did people even meet in romantic books? One of them transferred in the middle of the semester? A boring party, which both leads tried to escape? Jaemin groaned. That was too cookie cutter, there was no way that’d pass, especially when he was probably going to write like the complete Rookie he was, unable to twist words in an entertaining way.

Well, maybe he’d just do what he had been instructed to, and copy from real life? He could relate to the female lead, he was also in love with two guys. He didn’t remember how he met Jeno, he was part of all his memories because they’ve been friends for longer than his mind could recall.

But Renjun, he remembered meeting. Plus it had been sort of funny.

The Huangs had moved to Korea when Renjun started middle school, at the same one as Jeno and Jaemin. At 13, Jeno had gone through a phase of self-denial. The “no-homo-phase”, as it was dubbed later, where he had still tried to convince himself that he was straight. Internalised homophobia and compulsory heteronormativity was such a fun concept.

Jaemin had been lucky enough to have grown up with parents as weird as his, so when he had announced at 10 that he was going to marry Heechul from Super Junior, his mother had encouraged him.

Another coming out had never taken place.

So, in Jeno’s effort to blend in with immature, pre-pubescent males, thirsty for the attention of girls, he had joined the volleyball team. Because dancing was “gay” now.

Jaemin had been unworried and still auditioned for the dance team of the school, as the only boy – or so he thought until he had held open the door for Renjun, with a “ladies first” and gotten stepped on his foot and yelled at for minutes (in Mandarin, no less), much to the amusement of the actual girls.

To Jaemin’s defence: Renjun had not only been much tinier than now, but also gone through a phase of emulating Tiger’s Eye from Sailor Moon and the long hair had been a major throw-off.

Despite the physical harm and insults, they had become fast friends over Sailor Moon nerd talk and the realisation they both were busy ranking the volleyball team members by who they’d most likely want to date (only the 3rd years, everyone else was SO LAME, obviously).

So, Jaemin mashed that into the meeting story of two of his lead characters.

…

“Are we gluing the sparkle here?” Jaemin emptied the bag of rhinestone notes and Jisung yelped

“No! Oh my god!”

“Woops, my bad.”

“Nana. Those are way too many for the poster, it’ll be a sparkling mess!”

“Isn’t that what we were going for?” Jaemin pulled out the glue enthusiastically.

“Now we are, apparently.” Jisung mumbled, but willingly helped pressing the elements around their bright lettering that read “Lele is the best”.

“Will his family get him half a flower-field again?”

“Yeah, I talked with his mom and she pre-ordered, so the shop has those huge sun-flowers she likes to give Lele.”

“Those are really beautiful and they last forever, right, Jeno? Those they got you for your birthday lasted three weeks, longer than any other bouquet.”

“The ones they got me for my birthday only lasted a few days.”

“Well, you do have to water them.”

“I did.”

Jaemin grinned to himself and nodded, not wanting to annoy the grumbly Jisung any further. The same Jisung that was notoriously clumsy and forgetful.

 

It took them all the afternoon to finish the extravagant poster, so Jaemin found himself on his bed at a late hour, pen in hand, wracking his brain for a meaningful moment, during which his lead fell in love with one of the other leads. He wanted to cover some ground here, so a late-night-session was unavoidable.

But honestly, how did one write stuff like this? Jaemin should have read more romance novels to gain experience. For science. In the films Renjun and Jisung loved so much, it was scenes in the rain, a meaningful eye contact, that – bam – suddenly made them fall in love.

In Jaemin’s personal experience, it had never happened like that. It might for some, but not for him. So, having to trace it back to one moment was a bit… hard.

Hell, he had only realised he was in love with Renjun extremely recently!

And Jeno… when had his feelings changed, from platonic to romantic? When Jeno had overcome his straight-phase and told people, that no, he wasn’t going to ditch Renjun and Jaemin, only because they were gay, because so was he, during third year of middle school? When he had hit that growth spurt in 1st year of high school and his face made a rapid transformation from a boy’s into a man’s, angles sharpening, his jaw and nose becoming more harsh, yet his cute eye-smile stayed the same? When he had started working out in his free time and built up those broad shoulders, back muscle and abs, that Jaemin couldn’t help but steal a glance at every time Jeno changed around him?

It had just snuck up on Jaemin and he hadn’t even realised when he started to want to not only keep Jeno around forever because he was his best friend in the entire world, but also kiss him, hold hands, go on grossly romantic dates and all that stuff, on top of the things he already had.

So how on earth was he supposed to write this next chapter?

 

He must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again, the sun was filtering through his windows and his neck had a crick from where he had rested his head on a book all night. When he looked into the bathroom mirror, there was ink on his cheek and Jaemin had to spent 10 minutes rubbing it off, until the skin was red and tender.

He stared at the blank pages another ten minutes, before coming to the conclusion he wasn’t going to feel inspired for now and he was due to meet up with Renjun, anyway, so he packed it into his bag and made his way to Neo City’s main shopping centre.

 

“So, what are we buying exactly?” Jaemin asked, as they strolled down the base level, past the chains, both local and from abroad, that promised amazing deals, trying to lure customers with the pictures of handsome idols or pretty actresses.

“Well, first of all, I’m out of shampoo, so we have to go to Nature Republic and get more. And then, I need…” Renjun pulled out a folded paper on which the school’s logo was embossed, along with a to-do list. “I need red pants I can dance in and a black tee.”

“What’s the motto of the performance?” Jaemin tried to sneak a better look at what was written, but Renjun closed the page in front of his nose.

“Nothing interesting.”

“I’m sure it is. Anything you do is interesting.”

“Smooth talking will get you nowhere, Na Jaemin.”

Jaemin put on his best puppy eyes, but Renjun was immune to Aegyo and they continued their way towards the sports equipment place that carried dance wear in the cellar.

Finding a black tee was easy, finding red pants turned out to be a bit harder, but Jaemin eventually found some in the women’s section and Renjun sighed at the price tag, but tried them anyway. The problem with normal pants was, that they weren’t going to stretch how Renjun needed them to, so it had to be ones made for dancing and bending your body any questionable direction.

“I need you to check, if the fabric strains too much somewhere in the back.” Renjun pushed the curtain aside and Jaemin had to keep his face neutral, because those pants did wonders for Renjun’s subtly tones thighs and okay he was supposed to check his butt out – yes, what a terrible task to do.

Renjun raised his left leg comfortable, pulling it up behind his ear and Jaemin very diligently stared at the way the fabric stretched over Renjun’s behind…

“Nana, are you checking me out? I can see you staring!”

“I am doing my job, okay, let me live! It looks very good.”

Renjun let his leg drop, but his face was flushed and it looked so cute…

“Good, well, then I’m getting these and then we’re getting lunch, I’m hungry.”

“Sure.” Jaemin grinned, and watched the curtain being ripped shut. Flustered Renjun really was cute.

 

So, Jaemin’s leads fell in love over shopping together. This was getting too Renjun-heavy, Jaemin figured, so he filled in the gaps for the next chapter with all the strong points he loved in Jeno: patience, laid-back personality, unfunny jokes, caring, sometimes adorably confused, level-headed, and responsible. He ran out of pages, but the point came across – hopefully.

…

Jaemin wasn’t quite sure if it was normal, that he saw his task-givers, but there was no doubt it was them. Three figures, two of which were making out quite intensely, just outside the Noraebang place he and the other three had just exited.

“Wow, do you see those two?” Chenle whispered, eyes saucer-wide. And who could blame him? It was also a bit weird that he could see them in the first place, but maybe they were just here to have a good time? It wouldn’t be too weird, this was the party district, after all.

Jaemin was mildly surprised to find out that it was the first guy, the one who had been so set on calling the other two out, making out with cocktail guy-Taeil. Oh well.

“Wow, they’re pretty… open minded, aren’t they?” Jisung mumbled.

“Guys, stop staring, that’s rude.” Renjun sighed and pushed the two ahead. Jaemin raised an eyebrow, as he made eye-contact with Yuta, who winked at him and shot him the finger-gun.

 

Jaemin blamed that for the extremely long shower he had to take later the evening. The guy responsible for greed had messed with his emotions before. Meaning this guy probably could, too.

…

On Monday, Jaemin struggled through the confession scene, and he already hated it when he re-read it, because it was so cringey. But really, what did they want him to do? He had not confessed yet, that was the problem, he couldn’t steal from himself, like he had so far.

Jaemin was so busy staring at his terribly writing, he didn’t look where he went until he slammed into someone, stumbled backwards, but was caught by his arm before smashing into the ground.

“Yo dude, so sorry.” A deep voice apologised.

Jaemin looked up and came face to face with the man himself: Wong Yukhei.

“I didn’t look where I was going, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, aren’t you the guy from the hospital?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I hope the person you visited is doing better.”

Jaemin was stunted for a moment, he hadn’t even come to that conclusion, but really, why else would Yukhei be at the hospital?

“Th-thanks. Uh, he’s unchanged. I hope your person is?”

“Oh yes, my little brother broke his leg, no biggie, he’s doing fine. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your friend? Brother?”

“Friend.”

“Friend will be doing better soon.”

“Thanks, I’m hoping the same.” Jaemin smiled. He had to re-write that confession. He was sure of it. It had to be perfect, so it’d pass with the three guys.

“Hey, say, you’re friends with Chenle and Jisung, right? They didn’t come to the last game, I missed them, do you know why?”

…

“He missed us?”

“He noticed us?”

“Okay, Sungie, seriously, we had a huge-arse poster in neon colours, if he hadn’t, I’d sent him to the closest eye doctor.”

“Well, he could have been paying close attention to the game…”

“Do you think we should pick out task of wooing him back up?”

Renjun rubbed his temples.

“But he still has the girlfriend.”

“They might break up.”

“Okay, guys, if you – unfortunately – decide to continue your pitiful courtship, you should make up your minds whether or not you’ll be interested in a poly relationship with a girl or not. Because I’m seeing you two dorks setting yourself up for heartbreak. Or do you plan on leaving one of you out of the relationship?” Renjun pointed his chopsticks at first Chenle, then Jisung.

Jaemin choked on his overcooked vegetables.

“What’s a poly relationship?”

…

“So, Renjun knows about polyamory and I didn’t until a few days ago. I feel stupid. Jeno, do you know about poly relationships? Oh my god, this is so complicated. I know you’d say it isn’t. But it really feels complicated.” Jaemin rubbed his face, whining. “Because, I mean, I’m still scared to tell you, like, face to face, how I feel, but I’m going to do it, I really am. But Injunie? How am I supposed to bring that up? And he probably doesn’t feel the same, anyway.”

Jaemin swallowed down tears of frustration.

Maybe, he should stop stressing about this and just focus on the task at hand, get Jeno back, and figure something out with him. Wait! Maybe Jeno was against the idea of Jaemin being in love with both him and Renjun. Jaemin groaned into his hands. He was probably losing years of his life right now. Why was being in love SO STRESSFUL?

 

After what felt like hours of staring at the dark ceiling and contemplating if he had made terrible decisions in his life (and how to write that damn confession scene), he had fallen asleep without even noticing, slipping off into a dream.

Jaemin didn’t even realise it was a dream at first, because everything was so clear and no weird glitches happened, like they tended to in dreams. He was at the park on the river side that he and his friends loved to go to in summer. They hadn’t yet this year, because their free weekends were spent at the hospital instead. It felt extremely nostalgic and Jaemin tried to breathe in the scent of grass, but his dream was scent-less.

The second give-away that this wasn’t reality was, that Jaemin’s head was rested on Jeno’s chest, and he in turn was running his fingers through Renjun’s hair, who was lying on his chest, but he didn’t feel the silky texture of the strands.

Children were running past them, but he couldn’t hear their screaming, nor could he hear another else, for that matter, save for his two best friends’ steady breathing.

It felt like pure bliss, calmness, and peace. Which was also why this had to be a dream. Jaemin’s life, even when he wasn’t trying to save Jeno’s soul, wasn’t calm and peaceful. But it especially wasn’t right now.

“You’re overthinking, Nana.” Jeno’s voice rumbled in his chest, and if he could feel in his dream, he would have felt the vibrations. As it was, he only heard the gentle, lower pitch that Jeno liked to talk in most.

“I’m not.”

“And you’re stubborn. But in the wrong ways.” Renjun added, voice contrasting Jeno’s beautifully, with how light it was.

“Excuse me? This is my dream! Why are you insulting me?”

“It’s just the truth.” There was a chuckle in Jeno’s voice. Jaemin groaned and hid his face under his arms.

“Really, though, a confession scene?” Renjun teased “How typical that you can’t think of anything. Jen would have made it super romantic, with candles and roses and all that stuff. You’d probably squeeze it in between the time after you finished eating and before the second bell-ring at the end of the lunch break.”

Jaemin frowned. Rude. He had considered that for his story, yes. But he hadn’t written it.

“I’d still accept that, I mean, it’s very Nana-ish, don’t you think?” Jeno contemplated.

“Come on, he could try a little harder, I’m not that easy.”

“Guys, I’m right here.”

“You’re not really, though, because this isn’t real.” Renjun turned and rested his chin on his hands now, fringe falling into his eyes.

It wasn’t, but Jaemin would be fine with it never ending.

Too bad it did. Renjun and Jeno disappeared into thin air just a second later. Everything turned pitch black and Jaemin was falling. He wanted to scream, but his voice wouldn’t work.

Just as fast as it had come, the feeling of free fall stopped, and Jaemin was lying of a sofa, in a foreign living room, the TV with some Anime running on the screen in the back.

“Ah, ah, ah, there we have you.” A familiar voice chided. Jaemin jerked up and found the complete trio from hell on the giant couch next to him. Yuta was focussed on the show, clung to the other two like a Koala. The other two’s eyes were trained on him, though, which was making him slightly nervous.

“Have me?” Jaemin carefully asked.

“Well, we can’t have our dear heaven-sent help too much, can we now? It’s annoying, how effortlessly he sneaks around the rules.” Taeil smiled “So, sorry for breaking that little dream for you.”

“That wasn’t forbidden, though, was it? I didn’t do anything.” A spark of panic burst through him.

“No, it’s not, especially not when our boss lets your particular death angel slide so much… but that’s a completely different story.” The tallest explained. That was a relief then. So, Jaemin probably should use the tips from that dream for his confession scene….

“You should go back to your dream land now. We’re looking forward to your story.” Taeil waved and Jaemin was falling, yet again.

…

Jaemin felt like he had not been sleeping for three months, rather than two nights. But the nightly writing sessions had paid off. His story was finished, save for that damn first confession scene. It was embarrassing, really, that even though he had gotten help, he was still stuck.

He considered just giving this story to the trio of Lust, because today was already the 31st of May and he was running out of time. But he was so unhappy with how stiff and awkward and weird the writing felt, he didn’t want to risk them not accepting it, when he was pretty happy with everything else.

That was the worrying part. Because normally, he could look at the cheat-page, but this time, it couldn’t help him.

“Nana? You really don’t have to walk me to ballet. You look like the only place you should be walking to is your bed and fast at that, I already told you yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I have to visit Jeno anyway and the studio is on the way.”

“I also told you, you don’t have to visit Jeno. He’s not going to get lonely from one day of not hearing your voice. Especially when you look like you need a nap this badly.” Renjun sighed. Maybe it was really best to just go home and write some more…

Renjun fixed him in a hard glance and Jaemin faltered. “Okay, I’ll just go home.”

“And sleep.”

“And sleep.”

“Good.”

“After I bring you to ballet.”

After another moment of staring, Renjun nodded, seemingly satisfied. He wasn’t sure why, but there was this hunch, that he really couldn’t leave Renjun to go there alone today.

“You know, I’ve thought that we could get Jeno the new cherry scented series for his air freshener.”

“The Red Velvet edition?”

“Of course, the Red Velvet edition.” Renjun chuckled, hooking his arm into Jaemin’s, as they made their way down the subway station.

“I haven’t even gotten it for myself yet. Maybe, we should go shopping on Saturday?”

“Hold on. The Na Jaemin is suggesting to spend time together on the weekend? Am I dreaming?”

“I’m not that bad, Injunie!” Jaemin whined.

“You kind of are, though. But it’s okay. I…” Renjun’s voice was drowned out by the subway pulling into the station and the swarm of people pushing inside.

Once they were settled against a holding pole, Jaemin asked

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?”

Renjun blinked and smiled “I said I’d love to go.”

Jaemin didn’t miss that there was more that he wasn’t saying. He had known Renjun for long enough to be able to read him that well now.

“Am I neglecting you? Injunie, if I am, you have to tell me, okay? Because I really don’t mean to, but I see you all the time, so maybe I’m forgetting that we should be spending some time together, or something?”

“It’s okay. We do see each other a lot and I get it, that Jeno’s your number one priority now. If I were the one…” he cleared his throat and broke their eye contact, looking to the side.

“He’s not, though.”

“What?”

“You’re also my number one priority, or you should be.”

“Like I said, it’s no problem.”

That was a clear lie. They spent the rest of the short trip in silence, getting off the crowded cart together.

As they walked up the stairs, Jaemin looked for the right words. Could he just jump ahead in time, where he had this whole fucking mess figured out? They turned left, from where it’d only be another five minutes of walking.

“Once I have this… once I have more time again, I want to spend more time with you, it’s just right now, that everything’s a mess.”

“Yeah, it is. And just…”

Jaemin heard a screech and he reacted without thinking. He grabbed Renjun by the closest thing he could get, which was his shirt and pulled, using the momentum to slam them both into the wall they had been walking next to. The crash sound was the next thing Jaemin heard, close, but not too close. Renjun gasped into his ear and Jaemin looked over his shoulder and saw two cars, smashed into each other, pushed onto the pedestrian walk a bit, just far enough that they would have hit Renjun a moment ago.

There were people flocking around the vehicles immediately, not noticing the two teenagers pressed against the wall. Jaemin turned back to Renjun.

“Are you okay?”

He let his eyes drag over the smaller boy, noticing how pale he was, but otherwise unharmed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Renjun whispered, glancing past Jaemin, where the accident had taken place.

Jaemin stepped backwards and Renjun took a step ahead, before his knees buckled and he fell into Jaemin, who grabbed onto him and kept him from smashing into the concrete.

“Okay, maybe not that great.”

“Definitely not.” Jaemin helped Renjun stand up and half carried him over to the closest bench, away from the mess that was starting to form on the crash site.

They just sat in silence. Jaemin started to feel sickness twist in his gut and tried to push away thoughts of “could have been”s. It was fine. Everything was alright. It almost hadn’t been. But it was.

“Thank you.” Renjun whispered finally.

“Anytime.”

They both took a deep breath at the same time, breathing out slowly and audibly.

“I think I can walk now. I was just scared for a moment there.”

“Me, too. If…”

“Don’t.”

Jaemin nodded and buried his face in his hands. He really shouldn’t go there. Nothing had happened. And if it had, then… wouldn’t this be the exact same scenario, again? He never even told Renjun how he felt and then he’d have to make another deal with the devil and was there even enough time in a day to solve two tasks at the same time? He’d be so screwed, if he’d mess up one for the other. That’d be unforgivable.

“Do you think we can go? I don’t want to be late to classes.”

“I’m in love with you.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, that was not what he had meant to say! Jaemin jerked his head up, not even having looked at Renjun saying such fundamental words. Renjun’s jaw was agape, eyes wide and he stared at Jaemin.

“What?”

“No! This is not how I meant to say it, oh my god, I’m so sorry, just forget it, I…”

“Forget it? Because you didn’t mean to say that, right? You were thinking of Jeno, weren’t you?” Renjun’s face hardened.

“Yes. No, but not because I wanted to tell him. Okay, yes, I wanted to tell him, but it’s not like that, I…”

“It’s okay, I understand.” Renjun took his bag and got off the bench. Had Jaemin really forced Renjun to put back his own feelings so much? “I’ll… I’ll go the last metres on my own. It’s not far.”

“Injunie, can we talk, please?”

“My lesson starts in ten minutes, I can’t afford to miss it.”

“I put it all wrong, Injunie, I did mean what I said, I just didn’t want to say it like that.”

“Nana, please, don’t make this any more awkward than it already is. You misspoke, because you’ve been yearning to talk to Jeno about this, whom you’re actually in love with. It’s fine. I’m your best friend, I can handle this.”

With that, Renjun turned and wobbled down the street and Jaemin wanted to follow him, but it felt like all energy had left his body.

 

He had fucked up big time, hadn’t he?

…

After the catastrophic afternoon, Jaemin had slammed his door shut and locked it, before he pulled out the unfinished book and read over the pre-written chapter, where the girl confessed to the third guy, who calmly accepted her, telling her how perfectly fine everything was, and that he could imagine being in a relationship like that.

Jaemin felt tears of anger build up in his eyes. As if. As if it’d ever be that easy. He flipped back, to where he had built up to the dramatic finale, reading over everything once more. Then he pulled open the drawer with his writing supplies with so much force everything inside slid around, and pulled out the bottle of tip-ex.

 

He didn’t stop writing until his eyes fell shut and when he woke from his alarm, he only took a moment to wake himself up, before putting his pen back on the page and continued to write, the words flowing from fingers. There wasn’t much left of the original story, neither the parts he had written with so much effort before, nor the pre-written parts.

When his mother knocked on his door, telling him he was running late for school, Jaemin told her he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go. He only stopped by two in the afternoon, when the last word had been poured on the page. He slammed the book shut and swept the tissues off the table, that had bulked up there from his crying.

But now, that he had let it all out, he felt better. He picked up his phone and texted 666, then waddled to the bathroom to clean up and finally have some food.

When he returned to his room, there were three guys on his bed, sharing the book he had been working on for the last week. Taeil was sipping on what looked like Starbucks and Yuta was in the shortest hot pants Jaemin had ever seen on a guy, as they leaned over the third guy’s shoulder to see the pages better.

Jaemin didn’t speak, he just quietly sat down on his desk and pulled up his phone.

There were texts from Chenle and Jisung, wishing him to get well soon. One missed call from Renjun, from last night, at eleven, and a lot of push-up notifications from twitter. Jaemin’s finger hovered over the contact information of his best friend, but then he pressed the return button and turned the screen back off, focussing back on the trio reading through his book.

With their reading speed, they went through the book within an hour, during which Jaemin started to doze off on his desk – again – and when they finally finished, there were tears in two of the guys’ eyes.

“You re-wrote our chapters.” Taeil, the one least affected, pointed out. The guy in the middle, the one Jaemin still didn’t know the name of, closed the book and carefully held it.

“Yes, I did. There was no rule against that, was there?”

“No.” Yuta shook his head, dabbing away excess wetness from his eyes.

“The writing wasn’t that good.” The guy in the middle muttered, turning the book in his hands.

“And no one ever dared to cross out the outline we so carefully prepared.” Taeil added. Jaemin swallowed.

“Okay, will you two stop, I can’t even with you! Jaemin, this was beautiful. Truly moving. And I really hope this isn’t the end you envision for yourself, because if it is, I will personally come back up here, once you’re done with your contract, and make you three reconsider, because this is just unacceptably sad.”

Yuta waved his arms dramatically. Jaemin frowned. He didn’t want some enforced relationship, thank you very much.

“What Yuta means to say, is that you should not jump to conclusions and fight a bit more for what you want.” The middle guy said, fixing Jaemin in a surprisingly scary glance. “Your friends called you stubborn, and you are, but you should use it for your advantage this time.”

“But we’re not really here to give you love advice.” Taeil put his coffee aside.

“Why not? Where there’s love, lust grows easily. It’s a wise business move, actually.” Yuta smirked and Jaemin looked away quick enough to not get winked at again. He was not in the mood for that right now.

“Alright, so we agree he passed?” Taeil asked.

“Of course he did! Winwinie?”

The middle guy nodded and like someone had given a cue, they all got off the bed in perfect synchronisation, their casual clothing meting into emerald suits, each with differently decorated lapels, their hair going from floppy to perfectly styled and their eyes turning a matching dark blue. It was still impressive, even if Jaemin was already seeing it for the sixth time.

“You should get a reward from us.” the guy – was his name Winwin? – said and held up the book, and it hurt Jaemin’s heart a little when it shrunk into a dark blue pearl. All those words he had written…

But he held out his hand and the pearl dropped into his palm.

“Well, this was us.” Yuta smiled, hooking an arm around Winwin, who tried to wiggle away from him, but failed.

“Good luck with the last task.” Taeil picked his coffee back up and it turned into a ring he put on his finger. Neat. Jaemin definitely needed something like that for his coffee addiction, too. “It’s probably the easiest, yet the hardest.”

“But he’s little and cute. Taeyong will go mother-hen mode the second he sees him.”

“Which might make it even harder.” Winwin chipped in. Jaemin didn’t allow their words to scare him. He had been told that challenges were “hard” and “never passed” too many times. So, the next person coming was a Taeyong. Nice to know a name beforehand for once.

“Well, I believe in you!” Yuta cheered and pressed a wet kiss to Jaemin’s cheek, before pulling back and the trio disappeared without another word and Jaemin found himself rubbing his cheek in a mixture of embarrassment and confusion.

He checked the time. It wasn’t even 4 pm, so he could easily go and see Jeno, and get some studying done at the hospital. He suddenly felt the urge to go and see him right now, so he got dressed and packed his books.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, this got so long.
> 
> The virtue opposing Lust is Chastity, it’s represented by the colour blue and the cow. I just HAD to make this Yuwinil. Also, I don’t really think Yuta’s a hot pants kind of guy, but for the aesthetics, I wanted one of them to be and it sort of felt like he’d be most likely in this setting.
> 
> Representing Pride last chapter was Doyoung. Since only Taeyong is left, there’s no reason for me to try and keep it a secret.
> 
> So, we only have 21 days and one challenge left, as well as a misunderstanding to clear up and a confession to make… haha… ha. Buckle up for another monster-chapter.
> 
> Thank you for reading, please let me know your thoughts in the comments~


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You heard of "Jaemin screws up his confession"? Well, get ready for "Jaemin screws up more confessions without even really being at fault". I’m sorry for making this so angsty, I don’t even know where it came from? And this chapter is also over 8,000 words...

The hospital was the same was ever and Jaemin felt a little bit bad, as he took the lift up to Jeno’s floor, because he was in casual clothes after basically skipping the day. But he really hadn’t wanted to face Renjun. Which was probably also dumb.

Jeno was bedded on his side when he entered, the small bundle of flowers his sister had brought last time replaced by a new, similar one. Jaemin smiled to himself, relieved that she had actually taken his pleadings to heart, even if it was hard on her.

He had just scattered his books around himself, when the door was opened again. Jaemin turned his head and when he saw who had entered, alarm sirens started blasting in his head. If he had used his brain for about two seconds, he would have realised Renjun was also going to visit Jeno after school. But he hadn’t.

The beat of silence was too long, but Jaemin still forced the “Hi.” Off his lips.

“H-hi.” Renjun was frozen at the door, a blush starting to spread over his cheeks. The atmosphere was too awkward, Jaemin wanted to make a joke about it and hug Renjun or something. But he didn’t dare to.

“Uh, sorry for not coming to school. I didn’t feel well.”

Renjun nodded and slowly stumbled over to where Jaemin was sitting, never taking his eyes off him, but turning a deeper flush by the second. It was starting to become concerning. Why was he even blushing? Last time he checked, it had been Jaemin in love with Renjun and screwing up the confession, not the other way round!

“I really missed you.” Renjun mumbled and wow, that was kind of surprising to hear from him. If anything, Renjun was going to show something like that through actions, but say it out loud? That wasn’t typical for him. “You look so handsome today.”

Jaemin felt his eyebrows rise and face heat up as well now. Because, yes, he was confident in his looks, but today was not the day he felt ready to make guys and girls fall in love left and right, his eyes still puffy from crying half the night, and his hair a bit overdue for a wash. Not to mention his fashionable jogging suit.

“Are you feeling okay?” Jaemin warily eyed Renjun, who wouldn’t stop staring and was standing right in front of him now, looking down with glassy eyes.

“Yeah, peachy. I mean, who wouldn’t be, after accidentally getting confessed to by their best friend they’re in love with, but knowing they’re actually in love with their other friend, whom you’re also in love with? Wonderful day, truly.”

Jaemin started to think that Renjun was rambling and didn’t mean to say this, but what the hell, best friend they’re in love with?

Renjun reached out and let his fingers ghost over Jaemin’s face. “I mean, I can hope, right?” he whispered and started leaning down and Jaemin was definitely alarmed now.

“Injunie? What are you doing?”

Jaemin was not stupid, he knew what Renjun was going for, but he seriously doubted kissing would help the situation at hand right now. The Chinese startled at the words and pulled back, breaking eye-contact for a moment.

“Oh my god, holy shit, Nana, I didn’t mean to say that, fuck, I…” Their eyes met and Jaemin saw the moment Renjun went back into his weird state of being flustered and not quite there. What the….

YUTA!

“I’ll get going.” Jaemin threw the books into his bag at lightning speed, zipping it up to leave.

“No, please don’t go, Nana.”

Jaemin glanced at Renjun, who was still flushed, looking really cute. But he knew this wasn’t Renjun talking. Maybe, if he was lucky, it was his true feelings. But he wasn’t saying it from his free will of mind and that was the problem.

“See you tomorrow.” When that spell had hopefully worn off.

Jaemin fled the room and didn’t stop power-walking until the door of the Nas flat locked in place behind him.

“Oh Jaeminnie? Where did you go, I thought you weren’t feeling well?”

“I’m feeling much better, mom.” Jaemin muttered. Why was his mother even home from work already?

“Well, that’s a relief, I was wondering if your dad and I should stay home the weekend to look after you.”

Right, their monthly romantic trip, that was this weekend? Time was a weird and confusing concept right now.

“No, it’s fine.” Jaemin smiled tiredly.

His mother hummed and let her hands pat him down, like she was looking for pain. “Alright, if you say so. If you feel bad again, you have to promise me, you call your grandma.”

“Yes mom.”

…

Jaemin seriously considered ditching school again. He had texted Jisung and Chenle, but no word from Renjun. He could only imagine how he felt, plus he felt incredibly guilty despite not having asked for Yuta’s… charm or whatever it was. But Jaemin wanted to get to a good university, so the entrance exam was important.

He was half-dressed, when he stumbled out of his room to get some breakfast, but to his endless surprise there were sounds from the kitchen, like someone was cooking. Had someone broken in? And was making food now? A food-thief?

What the hell?

No, most likely his mom had decided to call his grandma and she was making breakfast for him, and was going to ask when he was going to get a girlfriend and get married. Jaemin sighed and waddled into the kitchen. Maybe he could ask his contract holder for the date that hell’d freeze over, so he could answer his grandmother in a respectable manner?

The person at the stove had grey hair, but he definitely wasn’t his grandma. Because he was male, taller than his grandmother, but a lot skinnier, and about a third her age – or less.

“Uh…”

“Oh!” the man twirled around, spatula in hand, a soft pink apron on that read “Employee of the month”

“Hi, you’re Jaemin? I saw you were still sleeping and then I realised it was kind of early for a school boy, like you, and then I noticed the house was empty and I figured you’d need a good breakfast.”

Jaemin nodded slowly. Who on earth was this person?

“I’m Taeyong, by the way, I’m here for your final task.” He beamed and it should have been obvious, but Jaemin was still an idiot. So this was the guy with the mother-hen instincts? They hadn’t promised too much.

“Nice to meet you.” Jaemin glanced past the guy and saw the fancies breakfast of his life being cooked.

“On the contrary, the pleasure is all mine, it’s extremely rare I get to task a contract holder these days! So, this is a special occasion for me. I hope you can pass my test, I’d feel really bad if you didn’t, but we can’t break any rules, of course.”

Right. Jaemin expected the task to get announced next, but Taeyong went back to his cooking, flipping some eggs and stirring some stew serenely.

“Uh, sorry? What is the task, then?”

The guy startled and turned back to Jaemin, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, I’m so sorry, I’m really out of practice. So, my task is really fun! You get to cook!”

He opened his hand and a stack of pages appeared. Jaemin wasn’t too terrible a cook. He didn’t get the opportunity to very often, but he managed to make something edible, when he tried.

“I have these recipes here for you to make.” He handed the papers over and Jaemin felt his eyes widen at the thickness. How many were there? They were held together with a pig-shaped paper clip. Jaemin let his finger trace over it, it looked familiar…

“Cute, right?” Taeyong beamed and Jaemin nodded weakly. “To ensure you do a good job, I will personally taste each dish you make. I’m very flexible and reliable, so don’t worry, I’ll be there the moment you finish so you don’t lose time. If I let them pass, they’ll turn orange on the page.” He gestured to the lose pages.

Jaemin nodded and started flipping through the recipes. Some had long notes on how to make them, some were very… unhelpful.

“Do I have to make them in order?”

“Oh no, you can choose freely which one you want to make next. But you have to make all of them and no help allowed, sorry.”

Jaemin nodded, still flipping through pages “Uh… how many are there?”

“Exactly 100.” Taeyong beamed “Oh and for your information, you are only allowed to make a bad-tasting dish two times, or…”

“I fail.” Jaemin mumbled.

“Exactly. I didn’t make up that rule, but the boss said it was too easy else.”

Right, because making 100 dishes was child’s play.

“So, here’s your breakfast! You need to eat to grow up healthily!”

…

Renjun was leaned over his books and didn’t look up when Jaemin entered the classroom. He wanted to annoy him, cuddle, but he also knew they had some things to talk about and he didn’t know how address them, and even if he did, he didn’t want to do so in a crowded classroom.

But it felt lonely.

At least he had Chenle and Jisung to talk to in the lunch break. Apparently, there was a major problem in the preparations of the performance, because the lovers didn’t want to kiss. Jaemin just kept quiet as he listened.

…

That his parents were gone had the big advantage of the kitchen being free and no questions being asked. If he pushed all the cooking to the weekends, he’d have to make more than 30 dishes every weekend, which was just not possible, especially when there were so many recipes he had to figure out how to make. But research on those could easily be done on his way to school and back.

Jaemin had sketched out a rough schedule that left him with one spare day to get everything done and it worked out perfectly this weekend, leaving him with enough time for short visits to Jeno on both days and enough food to feed a football team.

Taeyong was pretty pleasant to be around, if you looked past his obsession with feeding Jaemin to an extent that he felt a bit sick in the evening. At least they said food made you happy and he was plenty distracted, because over the whole weekend there still was no word from Renjun.

 

On Monday, he and Renjun still didn’t talk. Jaemin made sweet and sour pork.

On Tuesday, he and Renjun still didn’t talk. Jaemin made spicy chicken stir fry.

On Wednesday, he and Renjun still didn’t talk. Jaemin made fried rice.

On Thursday, he and Renjun still didn’t talk. Jaemin made Vegetable stew.

On Friday, he and Renjun still didn’t talk.

 

“So, what happened between you and Jun-Jun?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Jaemin sipped his chocolate milk. Not lactose free. He was living the thug life.

Chenle rolled his eyes so hard, it probably hurt. “You and Jun-Jun haven’t talked all week. Jisung and me decided we weren’t going to say anything if you figured it out yourselves, but you haven’t.”

“I thought we were just going to visit Jeno together, not discuss the dark problems that haunt our souls.”

“You’re being overdramatic.”

“So what if I am.” Jaemin hadn’t properly whined for over a week and he was missing his Renjun-cuddles. That, together with the stress cooking was giving him, made him stretch so thin he was probably going to burst into tears, if Chenle was being mean now.

“Okay, so, what happened? Can I help you?”

Jaemin pushed the front door of the sleek hospital building open.

“I don’t think so, thanks, Lele.”

“But you fought, right?”

“Erm…” they hadn’t fought, had they? “Not really. It’s a pretty huge mess. I accidentally confessed, Renjun thought I wasn’t talking about him and didn’t listen when I tried to correct him, that I wasn’t talking about Jeno, but him, because I like him, too, as in, I like both of them. And then we saw each other again, Renjun accidentally confessed to me and said he was hurt, which, of course he was, I was being the worst friend possible and now we aren’t talking.”

Chenle nodded, face serious. Jaemin had expected him to not believe him, which was why he had even spilt this in the first place. Well, and because he was too stressed to come up with lies. Well, apparently nothing was going according to plan, so that was fine.

“I’m pretty sure you have to tell him again, that you like him.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, he apparently didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. Maybe he was scared to get hurt.”

Jaemin nodded. He understood that feeling all too well.

“But I don’t know about Jeno. I can’t leave him out of such a development.” Jaemin rubbed his ear.

“I get that, but… and don’t take this wrong, but you can’t take your life to a halt because Jeno is not with us right now. We don’t know when he’ll wake up. It could be years. Would you want your life to pass by you for years? When you could have been happy and with Renjun in that time?”

“But I feel like I’m betraying him.” Jaemin whispered. They were in front of room 423 now.

“That’s just silly, Nana. Plus, you three already acted like boyfriends all the time. Jeno will probably take this the easiest, you know how he is. Either, he likes you back and you find a solution, or he likes both of you back, perfect, or he doesn’t like either of you back and you’ll just be best friends again.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Because it is, when you aren’t overthinking so hard.” Chenle smiled and pushed the door open.

 

Jaemin decided to push the talk ahead, after all, he had cooking to do. A brilliant excuse.

By Monday, he had gained a total of 2 kg, because Taeyong insisted he ate, because he was looking skinny. Jaemin was starting to feel like the pig that held the recipes together, but at least, 63 of them had turned orange already and he had only messed up one that had been really difficult.

Jaemin placed a box of strawberry shortcake on Renjun’s desk, when he passed him, and the Chinese startled and scooted away, like he had dropped a rattle snake. It hurt. Badly.

“For you.” Jaemin forced on a smile and Renjun stared at him for a second, before staring at the cookies.

“Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.”

Renjun opened the lid, but the teacher entered the room before he could move any of the cookies, or see the note Jaemin had put into the bottom, asking to please talk during lunch break.

 

Jaemin ended up waiting in vain and being left on read.

…

Taeyong choked on the spoon of bibimbap. Jaemin quickly handed him a glass, hoping his mother hadn’t heard. He frowned at the food. When he had tasted it, it had been fine….

“A bit too much vinegar in the rice.” Taeyong wheezed, before downing the rest of the glass. “But don’t worry, you’re not out, unless you mess up another time.”

Jaemin took the glass back. “Okay.”

“Hey, don’t look so down. You’re on schedule and you have another six days left until your time is up. You’re doing great, super great!” Taeyong squeezed his cheeks, until Jaemin smiled a bit.

This was an easy dish. How could he have messed up so badly?

Maybe it was because Renjun had been missing from school since Tuesday and wouldn’t respond to his texts and calls, so he had very quickly given up, not wanting to annoy him. He had asked Chenle, because the two were close over their shared home country, but Chenle had just sighed deeply and said something about being surrounded by idiots. Jisung had taken full offence and threatened to burn the sign for the performance, so now, Chenle and Jisung were fighting as well. Realistically speaking, they’d be fine within a few days, though, they always were.

Chenle and Jisung fought all the time. Jeno, Jaemin and Renjun bickered, but they never argued. Or rather had.

At least Jeno was still there to listen to his problems.

…

“Jaeminnie, you’ve been really a big help, but we have too much food, you really don’t need to cook this weekend, darling.”

“Mom, I have to do this.”

“But why, darling?”

“For… school.”

“For school? Then, could you take the dishes to school, please?”

“Uh…”

“I have seen so much food go to waste in the last days, when there’s people starving. I hate it.”

“Yeah, I will. Totally.”

Jaemin opened the fridge and a box of kimchi fell into his face. Maybe his mother was right…

 

The Huangs lived in a high rise in a slightly better part of the city than the Nas. So Jaemin was definitely out of place with his hair sticking all direction and the old school sweater he had put on in the morning to visit Jeno before starting his cooking-session, that was stained with food now, while people were passing him to go to nice Sunday evening dinners.

He knew the Huangs were home, because Renjun’s father always, without fail, did the books for the family in Sunday evening. His hands were shaking a little, when he pushed the bell and waited. The line cracked and Mrs Huang’s voice came through the speaker.

“Hello, who’s there please?”

“Hi, it’s Jaemin.”

“Oh Jaeminnie! I’m buzzing you in right now!” her accent was thicker than Renjun’s, making her words sound cute to Jaemin. He pushed against the door and rode the lift up to the tenth floor, gripping onto the stack of boxes of food for dear life.

Mrs Huang let him inside with a beam. “Chenle came by all week and told me how incredibly busy you were, but it’s so good to see you visit. Renjun’s already feeling better, but he really got taken out there for a bit. And in summer, would you believe it? ACs are dangerous! You aren’t sleeping with it on, are you, Jaeminnie?”

Jaemin shook his head obediently, as they walked down the hall to the room Renjun lived in.

Renjun’s mother knocked and called him, speaking in Mandarin. Jaemin recognised his name and hoped Renjun wouldn’t decide to ignore him. But the handle was pushed down and Renjun’s face appeared, pale and with deep, dark circles under his eyes.

He said something to his mom, who said she was going to be in the living room and then he looked at Jaemin. He looked worn out, as tired as Jaemin felt. And he also hadn’t just ditched school, but actually got sick and Jaemin felt god-awful for not coming by earlier.

“I – uh. I brought food.”

“Again?” Renjun asked, voice hoarse.

“Yeah, uh, I’ve been in a cooking streak.”

Renjun wordlessly stepped aside and opened his door further so Jaemin could come inside. The room was in a state of mess, at least for Renjun, who was clean for a teenager. There were school books around his bed and Jaemin’s eyes caught on a medical book he was sure wasn’t part of any class they taught in high school. They did not teach anything on coma in biology.

“Sorry I didn’t answer your text.” Renjun mumbled, as they awkwardly stood there.

“Sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

“I didn’t really know what to tell you. I still don’t.”

Jaemin took a deep breath and walked over to Renjun’s desk. He swallowed and pushed the medical aside, settling the boxes of food down. “I do, though. And I hope you could listen.”

There was no answer and when Jaemin turned, Renjun nodded, fiddling with his sleeves.

Wait. What did he want to say again? He should have excessively practiced this in front of a mirror before coming here.

“I can understand that you don’t accept my feelings, I’ll leave you alone, it’s no…” Renjun started, while Jaemin was still trying to look for the words.

“No!” He had crossed the room in three large steps and had his hands on Renjun’s shoulders, hoping to make him shut up. It worked, because Renjun startled and stopped talking because of his surprise.

“God, really, I should have made you listen the first day. Renjun, I’m in love with you, like, romantic love! And with Jeno, too. I looked it up, it’s possible.”

Renjun blinked once, twice, then a tear rolled down his cheek and Jaemin hurried to wipe it away with his thumb. That broke the shock he had gone into and a small chuckle built up in Renjun’s throat, building up, until he was giggling loudly. Jaemin just stood there, unsure if maybe his friend had snapped.

“You looked it up? Oh my god, what did you type into Google? And what kind of weirdo does Google now think you are?”

“I… are you making fun of me? Really? After everything?” Jaemin whined and wrapped his arms around the giggling Renjun, who for once didn’t fight back with every bone.

“Sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you, if we go on a date together.”

“Literally when?”

“I ditched the shopping I offered, didn’t I? We should repeat that. Or watch a romantic sunset from Jeno’s room.”

“I’m quaking from the aesthetics. Also, the sun sets after visiting hours.”

“Oh, I know: we break into the hospital. Romantically.”

“Please stop.”

“You can’t make me. Romantic study sessions to the sound of romantic ECG humming, romantic lunch break with questionable food, ro…”

“I’m not going to kiss you and give you the flu, if that’s what you want to achieve with your annoying blabbing.”

“I want the kiss, not the flu.”

“Well, they’re a package deal.”

“Just to make sure. Are you fine with me liking Jeno, too?”

“I am, if you are with me liking him, too.”

“Oh, good taste!” Jaemin wiggled his eyebrows.

“I already regret this. Can I have a refund?”

“Too late.” Jaemin giggled.

…

Nothing felt as good, as flopping into the chair behind Renjun and have him turn around and roll his eyes fondly, before scolding him for being almost late.

Chenle looked like a proud parent, which was a whole new level of disturbing. They had agreed to tell no one yet, because they both wanted to figure this out for themselves first, preferably with Jeno. But they were talking again, of course. Jaemin almost told Renjun, that with a bit of luck they could do that sooner than he was probably thinking. But he couldn’t.

Instead, he ditched his visit to the hospital on Monday to race home and hog the kitchen before his mom would come home and complain about too much food again. There were only two dishes left now, after all: Kimchi pancakes, which Jaemin felt fully capable of making, and chocolate cookies.

“You really rushed there.” Taeyong pulled apart the pancake, as Jaemin checked the cookies, munching on it.

“Well, there’s only three days left.”

“Plenty of time.”

“Still, I need to see Jeno.”

“I can understand that. These are really good.” Taeyong held out his chopsticks and Jaemin internally sighed. At least he hadn’t had dinner yet. He took the food and chewed, while waiting for the timer to run out.

“Oh, Taeil told me to tell you he’s very sorry for the trouble his boyfriend caused you. If you manage to finish, he has a present for you, he said. As reparation.”

“That’s nice.” Jaemin mumbled. Taeil had seemed the most reasonable out of the three… which still wasn’t very reasonable, but well.

“I think everyone grew pretty fond of you. I said it before, we don’t have a lot of people really getting souls back and especially not people this young. It’s usually people in their 40s who are the most successful, because they have life experience, but still enough time left to live to have true fighting spirit.”

“Are people in their 40s good at video games, though?”

Taeyong chuckled “You mean Mark and Donghyuck? They have a different setting depending on your age, but yes, they still take out the biggest chuck of people.”

“Say, what happens to someone who loses their soul to the devil?” Jaemin turned from the oven. Taeyong had finished the pancake and looked satisfied.

“You become like us. A demon, responsible for the sin you failed solving.” Taeyong simply answered. Jaemin felt his eyebrows rise.

“You made a deal with the devil?”

“Yep, with Ten, the same guy you did. I failed at the sin of Gluttony.”

“The last one?” Jaemin felt pretty bad for Taeyong.

“No, the order changes from time to time. It was my third task, so it wasn’t that bad. I mean. It kind of sucked at the time, but I got used to it and life as a demon isn’t that awful, especially with a boss like ours. Unless you mess up and get desk duty. That isn’t fun.”

“So everyone else, they all had deals with the devil? And failed?”

“With Ten, yes.”

Jaemin knew he was gaping at Taeyong, but the shock was too big to overcome this easily. The ringing alarm ripped him from his efforts to wrap his mind around this new revelation and he pulled open the oven, checking the dough.

He deemed them ready, and pulled them out, turning off the heat.

“I’m really sorry you couldn’t save whoever you wanted to save.” Jaemin said, facing Taeyong again, who was already reaching out to take a cookie. He hesitated and smiled.

“Thank you, that’s actually really nice of you. But it’s been very long since then, over 200 years, so it doesn’t hurt anymore. And I know she’s in a good place now.”

Jaemin nodded. Taeyong blew onto the cookie, before taking a small bite. The seconds it took him to chew and swallow seemed to stretch on forever, until finally, he nodded.

“You’re in love, and it shows in these. You pass.” He smiled and Jaemin saw the last recipe turn orange on the paper. “Now, here’s not the place to finish business, is it? We also wouldn’t want your parents to suffer from a heart attack.” Taeyong stepped forward, his light blue tshirt melting into the trademark emerald velvet suit with a heavily bedazzled lapel. His hair went from grey to cherry red, a gash in his eyebrow turning his appearance from cute and innocent to intimidating and dark.

The remaining part of the cookie in his hand turned into a pearl as orange as his eyes, that he handed over to Jaemin.

“Put it on your bracelet, we’ll take a quick trip through town and I don’t want you to lose it.” Taeyong smiled, breaking the scary façade and Jaemin hurried to do as he was told. The seven pearls build a rainbow on his wrist and Taeyong took his arm, holding tight, but not painfully so. “Close your eyes until I tell you to open. Oh, and it might get a bit hot.”

Jaemin wanted to ask, but the second his eyelids closed, it felt like someone has dumped him into a room without AC in the midst of summer at 40°C, and additionally turned on a fan below his feet that worked on the highest setting, blowing hot air into his face.

It lasted several seconds and Jaemin started to feel his head pulse from being too hot, sweat immediately starting to run down his back. And then, when he thought he was probably going to die, it stopped.

“Okay, we’re here. Open up!” Taeyong chirped and Jaemin opened his eyes to find himself in room 423 at the hospital, the air blissfully cool and pleasant.

The sweat was magically gone and when he ran a hand through his hair, it felt normal. Not like he had just gotten it blow dried with what possibly was hell-air. The machines were calmly humming, as every day, and Jeno had fresh poppies on his bedside table, face as peaceful as ever.

“I literally told you one hour ago, how could you have already forgotten?” Jaemin turned and almost screamed in surprise, when he saw a group of familiar men in green, that were crowded in the corner.

“Well I didn’t listen to you, because you kept talking about your boring ass new shoes.”

“Oh yes? When else aren’t you listening, huh? This is just plain disrespect, I am OLDER than you. Wiser! More experienced. You should be calling me Hyung.”

“Mark-Hyung? I’m gagging, no way in hell and heaven.”

Taeyong had already hurried over and was now trying to break the two guys apart. Yuta and Taeil were trying to feel up Winwin, who ended up hiding behind Jaehyun, who pushed off the other two with little trouble and a bored expression. Johnny was napping on Doyoung’s shoulder and Jungwoo was playing with bunnies made from clouds.

It was a mess.

The air vibrated once more, and the small figure of the man Jaemin had signed the deal with appeared out of nowhere. The ten demons fell silent immediately, his presence apparently not only impressing Jaemin.

He glanced over to his minions – or whatever their working title was – and then to Jaemin, a smirk pulling on his lips. “Jaemin. I see you managed to pass all seven tests?”

Jaemin nodded and held up the bracelet with the seven pearls.

“Good job. I must admit, I don’t regret making the contract, I don’t remember being this entertained in a long time.” At least he had that going for himself then. “Now, I talked to the guys from upstairs, but bureaucracy, you know how it is. We’ll just have to wait for a second.” He turned to the ten suited guys “Say, did one of you happen to witness who broke my lucifer of the month award? Because Hendery informed me he found it under the cabinet, shattered.”

Ten heads shook in synch. “Hm… how odd. I could swear I…”

“Sorry I’m late.” The black figure of the death angel materialised on the bed, his scythe looming over his head. “Took me forever to get the stamp from the office, but it’s all done now.” He waved a piece of parchment, that looked like something Jaemin would expect to sign his life and soul away on. Even if it was only for the goth aesthetics.

“And this is the reason why we digitalised our offices long ago. You should suggest it to Hansol some time.” The devil rolled his eyes.

“I did. Nothing will change, you know how it is.” The death angel turned to Jaemin and smiled. “Congratulations, Jaemin. That was very impressive.”

“Tse tse tse, don’t think I didn’t notice you messing with my unit.” The devil shook his finger at the death angel, who didn’t look particularly intimidated or bothered.

“I didn’t break any rules, did I?”

“No.”

“See? Alright, I still have a ton of work to do, so let’s get this deal done and over with, shall we?” the death angel held out the parchment and the devil took it, reading over it, before nodding and letting it disappear into thin air. Jaemin didn’t miss one of the demons complaining about also having work and investors hating to wait.

“My work here is done then. It was a pleasure making business with you, Na Jaemin. If you decide to still sell your soul for own, selfish reasons, please don’t hesitate to contact my reliable unit 127. You have their number.” The man held out his hand and Jaemin shook it.

“Thank you, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“Ah, never say never. Alright, boys, dismissed. See you around, Kun-Kun.”

The crowd almost immediately started disappearing, and Jaemin turned to the death angel, who had stepped back up to Jeno’s bed.

“Will he wake up again?” Jaemin asked.

“He will. Give it an hour, or two. Rewriting a fate takes some time.”

Jaemin nodded and couldn’t help sniffle a little. He wasn’t usually crying a lot, but these past weeks really were an emotional rollercoaster of the hard kind.

The death angel let his hand hover over Jeno heart for a moment, before pulling back and turning to Jaemin. “It’s all done. I wish you all the best for the remaining time of your life. And if you can help it… don’t make more deals with the devil. It’s rare they work out this well.”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.” The man looked over Jaemin’s shoulder and he turned, seeing that there was one demon left in the room: Taeil, who grinned at the death angel who sighed. “No offence, Taeil. I’ll get going now. Goodbye, Jaemin.”

And with that, the dark figure also disappeared.

Taeil strode through the room, the green suit melting away in favour of a beach shirt and shorts. “Did my apologies reach you?”

“Yes. Thank you, but it’s fine.”

“It’s now, but it could have been easier. I hope you can forgive Yuta, he thinks everything can be solved with a bit of charm. I noticed you still had some questions left, so let me gift you this, to make up for it. The later chapters will fill in once you’re ready.” Taeil winked and pushed the book into Jaemin’s hands. “Because you should know what you’re doing, when you’re doing it.”

He looked at the title, that read “All questions you were too ashamed to ask – LGBTQ+ edition.” Jaemin couldn’t wait for his mom to find this under his bed.

“Shake it once.” Taeil instructed with a smile, like he had read his thoughts. And maybe he had, who knew? Jaemin wasn’t sure why he should shake a book, but he still did as told, and the letter tumbled over the page, turning into “A little history of the world”.

“Nice. Thanks. I guess?” God knew what was written in this book, it could be anything, knowing the trio it came from.

“You’re welcome. Oh, looks like you don’t have to wait for an hour, after all.” Taeil said “I’ll take my leave then.”

Jaemin turned to see what he was talking about. The machines around Jeno hummed as normal, but he knew exactly what the line of his heartbeat normally looked like. And this was bigger. Jaemin was by the bedside in the blink of an eye, looking over Jeno, who still seemed unchanged, but the difference on the papers wasn’t lying.

He scrambled for his phone, but his hands shook so badly, he couldn’t properly unlock it.

Jeno let out a small sigh and Jaemin watched, as his eyelids fluttered, slowly opening, like they were heavier than normal. Really, who could blame him? His gaze darted around the room for a beat, before landing on Jaemin. Jeno made a small grumbling noise and Jaemin fell back into action.

“Jeno? Hey! It’s me!”

Jeno blinked slowly, eyes still heavy, but his mouth twitched into a tiny smile. Jaemin finally managed to get past the lock screen.

“Hi Nana.” Jeno’s voice was rough from disuse and Jaemin couldn’t help letting out a small sob at the sound.

“Hi Jeno. Oh my fucking god, you gave me such a scare there, you’re not allowed to ever do that again!” his voice broke off.

Jeno smiled, his arm twitching, but his body was too stiff, the muscle too weak, to properly move it on his own yet.

“Sorry.”

Jaemin held up the phone in front of him as good as he could and just randomly called a contact in his recent calls list, putting it on speaker, because he didn’t trust his hands to hold the phone properly.

“It’s okay, because you’re back now.” Jaemin whispered and carefully took Jeno’s hand. It was still a bit too cold, but there was a press back, when he squeezed.

“Hi Nana. What’s up?” Renjun’s voice filtered through the line suddenly.

Jaemin opened his mouth, but only an ugly sob left it.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Nana? Where are you?”

“He woke up.” Jaemin hurriedly explained, voice thick with emotion. “Hospital. Jeno.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Oh my god. I… really?”

“Yes really. Jeno, say something.” Jaemin held the phone closer to their friend. Jeno looked tired again already, but the tiny smile was still on his face.

“Injunie.”

A matching sob came from Renjun now, followed by loud rustling and Jaemin couldn’t help but chuckle through all of it.

“I’m coming right now, don’t you dare go anywhere!”

“Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere.” Jaemin assured. The door rattled and he looked up to see a nurse come inside. She looked over the two of them and broke into a smile, pulling up her hospital communicator.

“Well, Mr Lee, it’s nice to have you back. Jaemin, will you be a dear and let me check his vitals? Jaemin has been visiting you very loyally.”

“I know.”

 

“Jaeminnie? Did you make cookies, darling? They’re terribly salty, are you in love?” Jaemin’s mom called from the kitchen. There was a wet spot on Jaemin’s shoulder and he felt dead tired, but he shuffled towards her.

“What? They’re salty? I was told they were good!”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry, but they definitely are over-salted. Honey, look at me for a moment, did you cry?”

…

Jeno had been deemed pretty much fine, save for underweight and in bad shape regarding his stamina, which was to be expected if one lay in a bed and didn’t do anything for months. He had smiled at Renjun, and then gone right back to sleep, because he hadn’t slept enough apparently, leaving Jaemin alone to deal with a sobbing mess that was Renjun. But it was fine. Jaemin could handle his boyfriend, no problem.

They discreetly left, when Jeno’s parents arrived in a whirl, to get some coffee. And ice cream.

 

Unfortunately, neither his, nor Renjun’s mom deemed Jeno waking up a valid reason to skip school. He needed rest or something. Jaemin begged to differ and would willingly watch Jeno nap for ten hours, but he couldn’t afford skipping without her backing him.

But they were the first to run out the school campus once the bell run. Jisung and Chenle were planning to follow later, once they were done with their clubs.

Jeno had gotten relocated, so he was in the correct part of the hospital, no longer the place where coma patients were. The new room wasn’t as nice, because it wasn’t meant for a long-term stay, but there were worse things than probably getting discharged soon.

Jeno was sleeping, but blinked his eyes open before they could even try to either flee or sneak inside, a smile spreading on his face that already looked a lot more lively than yesterday, even his eyes crunching up a little.

“Hi!”

“Hi Jeno.”

The two waved awkwardly and shuffled inside. It was like meeting your idol for the first time or something. Why was this so weird?

“So.” Renjun cleared his throat. They had talked about it, that they had to get this off their chests immediately, because if they didn’t, it’d feel like they were lying to Jeno. Screw recovery phase and all that!

Jeno fiddled with the remote, making the bed rise up a bit.

“So, uh.” Jaemin put down his bag with unnecessary difficulty to gain time.

Jeno glanced between the two of them.

“Are we telling him now?” Renjun hissed.

“Well, yes. When else?” Jaemin whispered back.

“And how?”

“Well, just say it? I don’t know.”

“I thought you had a plan, you were planning this for longer than me, I only had two days.”

“But you’re much better with stuff like this.”

“Literally anybody is. Probably even Jisung.”

“I am not worse than Park Jisung, oh my god!” Jaemin wrapped an arm around Renjun and pulled him into chokehold, which the smaller immediately freed himself from by elbowing Jaemin in the gut.

“So, is there anything you want to tell me, perhaps?” Jeno asked gently.

They straightened up, like scolded children.

“Yes so…” Renjun said.

“We’re dating.” Jaemin burst at the same moment. He turned his head to Renjun.

“What? That was super insensitive, Nana! Can’t you try and make it romantic?”

“I thought you were going to say the same thing!”

“Congratulations!” Jeno smiled, a genuine smile, that made his eyes crinkle to the cute crescents Jaemin loved so much. So that was good.

“But we’re also kind of in love with you, too. It’s called Polyamory, I googled it.”

“Oh my god, Nana.” Renjun slapped his hands on his face.

Jeno didn’t seem surprised, nor startled, nor bothered. Because he was Jeno. He just calmly smiled.

“I know what that is.”

Of course, he did. No one had bothered informing Jaemin, apparently. He should be making a huge scene from this, really.

“So will you go on a date with us?” Jaemin asked, hoping to properly bring his point across.”

“Of course, I’d love to. I mean, I can’t go anywhere yet. But once I do…”

“I can’t believe you accepted that. Jen, that was possibly the worst confession in the history of confessions. Just for the record, I don’t consider this my confession, okay? I’ll make it romantic and memorable.”

Jeno giggled and nodded. “I’m looking forward to it. But I liked Nana’s too.”

Jaemin grinned and took his hand, squeezing. “Thank you.”

…

“I can’t believe that you’ll miss the performance!” Chenle wailed. “I worked so hard. And I have a ticket for you.”

“Sorry. Nana will have to film everything.”

“It’s not the same. My outstanding charms will not be properly conveyed to video.” Chenle dramatically dropped into his chair and Jeno grinned. He was propped up on his bed and his voice was much smoother already, getting better every day. He still easily got exhausted and moving was a strain and very limited for now. It’d take a few more months for him to be back to normal, but the most important step had already been taken: waking up.

“You could just perform it here.” Jaemin suggested and Chenle perked up, but Renjun cut in immediately.

“No. This is a hospital, a quiet, peaceful place. No singing, no dancing… just peace and quiet.”

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

“Hey, I’m the one who’s no fun.” Jeno complained.

“It’s actually true. You’re unbeatably boring at the moment.” Jisung agreed with a nod.

“See?” Jeno seemed weirdly satisfied with that. Jaemin smiled, because if Jeno was happy, so was he.

…

As expected, the musical was a hit. Renjun danced a beautiful solo, Chenle sang angelically and played dramatically. Other people also appeared, but Jaemin didn’t really pay attention to them. Jisung waved his sign during the applause until the girls behind them complained and Chenle’s mother threw flowers onto the stage.

Renjun ran into Jaemin’s opened arms from the backstage door and he started twirling them around. “You looked so pretty!”

“Let me down!” Renjun screeched, but Jaemin kept turning around himself. Chenle was filming and Renjun held onto him for dear life, screaming more.

When his arms started burning, he put his boyfriend down, who stumbled a few steps. “Did you want to kill me? Oh my god, I hate you!”

“You don’t, though.” Jaemin grinned and tapped his nose.

“Stop being gross and in love, we’re getting food!” Jisung hollered. They still hadn’t really told the other two, because the opportunity hadn’t arisen, but they, for once, were too smart. If now they could only somehow use that in their continued questionable courtship of Yukhei...

Jaemin grabbed Renjun’s shoulder and pulled him close, pressing a quick kiss to his lips, before he could protest.

“Coming.” Jaemin chirped and left Renjun standing, where he had turned into a statue.

…

It took three months, until Jeno was walking again. Many dates took place in the hospital, or with video chat running, so Jeno was with them. Sometimes, Jeno passed out while Jaemin and Renjun dashed through Neo City, but that was fine.

It took four months, until Jeno was released from hospital. The day was celebrated excessively with cake and screaming. Oh, sorry, singing. It was supposed to be singing.

It took four months and three weeks for their first actual date, which took place after Renjun and Jaemin finished their college entrance exams. Jeno wouldn’t be going back to school until the beginning of the new year, when he would start his third year. Until then, he was busy with physiotherapy and his own training to get back to his original motor skills.

And his abs, apparently.

Jaemin’s mother was delighted, when Jaemin introduced Renjun and Jeno, that she knew all too well already, as his boyfriends officially, as was his father, and they both promised not to tell anyone yet. Because Renjun was out and proud at school and with his friends, but not out to his parents and family, because he didn’t feel ready – though they probably had their own guesses from his behaviour - and Jeno was out, but wasn’t sure his parents were ready for such a big announcement right now. Both were understandable and Jaemin was eternally grateful that his parents were the way they were.

…

Jaemin blinked his eyes open. The sun was falling at a bad angle, shining right into his eyes, so he immediately squeezed them shut. They definitely needed to get some sort of curtain for this. He heard aluminium foil worked…. He shuffled around, bumping into Jeno’s arm and snuggled closer to get away from the offensive beams.

“Good morning.” Jeno whispered. He looked up at his boyfriend, who was smiling, then turned to his other boyfriend, still fast asleep. Because his face wasn’t in the fucking sun. Renjun’s head was on Jeno’s chest, cheek squished, making him look cuter than he already was.

Jeno had offered to take the middle place, because he was that much of a sweetheart. Renjun and Jaemin had pushed their beds together the moment they had moved into the college dorm room they had been assigned to, but there was the crack between them, so it wasn’t ideal. They’d just have to work with it, while they were broke and studying. At least they no longer had to sneak around their families.

“Morning.” Jaemin yawned and checked the time. It was 9 am.

“You know, I’m really glad you suffered through all those tasks for me.” Jeno pulled Jaemin closer and pressed kiss on his mouth.

“Worth it. And I still think having to answer the Pride Demon’s questions helped me get that score in my maths exam.”

“Urgh, not looking forward to that.”

“I’ll help you, you’ll do great.”

“Thanks.” Jeno grinned.

“Guys, quiet.” Renjun whined, pressing his face tighter into Jeno’s chest.

“Come on, rise and shine.” Jeno ran his fingers through Renjun’s hair, which was his favourite way to wake up.

“No.” Renjun rolled away, but he didn’t get far, because even two beds pushed together were pretty small for three people. Jaemin figured he was past the point where he could fall asleep again and they were meeting up with Chenle and Jisung in an hour anyway. Apparently, Chenle had met someone at the Chinese exchange students group was a mentor for, because his Korean was good, that Jisung now had a major crush on.

They both climbed over Renjun, who curled up into the blankets to get some more shut-eye, and Jaemin started sorting through the clothing that had gotten thrown around last night in a hurry to get undressed, looking for what belonged to him. If you let Renjun get there first, he stole everything he could get his hands on, even though the things fit baggy at best. Jaemin only had those jeans with him right now, he couldn’t give them up…

Jeno was on the search as well, and from how he was leaning down, you could see the scar under his hair. Jeno wasn’t too worried about it, deeming it part of his life experience, and it was normally covered by his hair.

It was a reminder for Jaemin, just like the rainbow pearl wristband he wore most days, and the sheet of paper that was still in the bedside table at home, just as wrinkle-free and pristine as if it had come from the printer a minute ago, the “3 days” forever frozen into it. Jaemin slipped into half his clothing, before flopping back on the bed, burying Renjun under him.

“Get off.” Renjun whined, but he didn’t get to knee or hit him anywhere, effectively pinned down, and Jaemin started kissing down his neck, which resulted in more screeching, until Jeno saved their smallest boyfriend.

“Urgh, I literally had the weirdest dream ever. There were ten really handsome guys in matching emerald velvet suits. Like an idol group? So weird, I don’t remember anything like that, do you?”

Jaemin threw Jeno a worried glance.

“Uh. No, I don’t think I’ve seen an idol group like that before.”

“Nope…”

“One told me to ask you for your book, you know, the little history of the world? To spice up our lives, so weird, where on earth was that coming from?” Renjun stretched, bending his arms creepily far back.

“Ahaha… I have no idea. Really weird.”

Maybe Jaemin should send a text to hell, that they should leave his boyfriend alone…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me any medical inaccuracies, I did do quite a lot of reading on coma from the first chapter on, but I didn’t get information on everything I wanted to, and I also needed this to fit with my story, so this isn’t by any means an totally accurate representation of how one wakes up from a coma, nor the recovery process. It’s also, because of the deal with the devil Jaemin made, so yeah… let’s ignore all the inaccuracies~~~
> 
> There’s a saying where I live that a cook in love will over-salt the soup.
> 
> Thank you for everyone who read this and left Kudos. Special thanks to everyone who left a comment/s.  
> I’m so happy to have finished this. I’m going to be honest, I’m not completely satisfied with all the chapters and challenges, some were super hard to come up with, but like I said before, I’ve been wanting to do something like this for so, so long and finally did it! ^.^
> 
> Also, writing 18 people is HARD. I thought I was having a hard time writing EXO (OT12) – lol, now I’ll have to start writing 21, but I also hate leaving people out – send help /o\


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